***************************************************************** 11/27/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.280 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 UPI: Analysis: Iraq exit via Iran? 2 AFP: West must accept a nuclear Iran: Guards chief - 3 AFP: NKorean nuclear talks envoys converge on Beijing - 4 AFP: Journalists from two Koreas to hold first-ever talks - 5 US: Inside Bay Area: Scientists boost Bush's plan for nuclear arsena 6 Blix vs Blair (but this time it is over British weapons of mass dest 7 RIA Novosti: Russia must remain a major nuclear power 8 BBC: Tories plan business carbon tax 9 BBC: 'Unlawful' nuclear upgrade 10 Guardian Unlimited: Comment is free: Nuclear chain reaction 11 Japan Times: Nagasaki to opt out of nuke plans | 12 UPI: Analysis: Who killed Alexander Litvinenko? 13 UPI: Top nuclear negotiators reach Beijing 14 Guardian Unlimited: Renewing Trident would break international law, NUCLEAR REACTORS 15 US: TMI: Use volunteers for evacuation in case of an emergency at 16 [du-list] Free downloads of ECRR Chernobyl book 17 Sydney Morning Herald: Beattie to ban nuclear power stations - 18 Sydney Morning Herald: Nuclear report may lead to carbon tax - 19 US: Charlotte Observer: Serving as energy roadmap 20 AU ABC: Public urged to resist nuclear push 21 AU ABC: Qld to ban nuclear power plants 22 RIA Novosti: 4 states may join ITER reactor project in 2007 - Russia 23 RIA Novosti: Nuclear research facility ready to remove reactor from 24 US: NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards to Meet Decemb 25 The Economist: World is warming to nuclear power 26 West Australian: Nuclear report may lead to carbon tax 27 Deseret News: Motivation about arena is a mystery 28 Sofia Echo: REACTOR CLOSURE IN BULGARIA SHOULD BE RECONSIDERED- NPP 29 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Model Application on Technical 30 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for th 31 US: MSNBC.com: Nuclear plant info available to public - 32 Prague Daily Monitor: Two solar power plants to be built near Temeli 33 US: Boston Globe: New England's potential as an energy giant - 34 Hemscott: EDF considers nuclear projects in UK 35 Telegraph: Heritage plan for nuclear power stations 36 EurekAlert: AECL signs agreement with Argentina on expanded CANDU pr 37 AU ABC: Qld to ban nuclear power plants. 38 The Australian: Beattie will ban nuclear facilities 39 AU ABC: Carbon pricings not related to nuclear power: Minchin. 40 US: TPR: U.S. To Ship Tons of Uranium Across Globe for Nuke Energy P 41 Judicial Watch: Whistle Blowers Recover Billions For Taxpayers 42 The Australian: Nuclear ban like 'book-burning' NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 43 [NukeNet] CNN News:Spy death: 5 have radiation tests 44 [NYTr] "I met poisoned ex-spy Litvinenko in Israel" 45 [du-list] Further evidence of enriched uranium in the air in 46 [du-list] Plain old, contaminated uranium metallurgical stock 47 [NYTr] Poisoned Russian Spy Went to Israel Weeks Before Death 48 [NYTr] The Growing Menace of Depleted Uranium Weapons 49 US: NRC: NRC, Pa. Company to Discuss Apparent Violations Stemming fr 50 US: Deseret News: Officials don't worry over minor radiation 51 Slate Magazine: Is radiation sickness contagious? - 52 US: Idaho Statesman: E. Idaho storage basins sealed to contain radio 53 BBC: More radiation found in spy case 54 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes: Call fo 55 UPI: Suspected spy poison deadly in tiny amount 56 Guardian Unlimited: Britain to Investigate Ex-Spy Poisoning 57 Guardian Unlimited: Traces of Radiation Found at More Sites NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 58 US: [NukeNet] APP Nov 25 Nuclear waste dump faces new roadblocks 59 [NukeNet] Scotland: Dounreay 'will pollute for decades' 60 Las Vegas SUN: Earthquake a real possibility 61 RGJ.com: Yucca plan revisits region 62 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Low-level radiation shipments across Utah 63 US: NPR: EPA Expected to Issue Million-Year-Long Regulation PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 64 [du-list] Divine Strake back in Nevada 65 [du-list] Higher cost raises question about Centrifuge 66 Hanford News: DOE mulls burial grounds cleanup 67 Hanford News: DOE finishes evaluation of cleanup plans at Hanford 68 Knox News: Y-12 facility nearly half complete 69 lamonitor.com: Rising to the challenge: Lab sets course for 2020 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 UPI: Analysis: Iraq exit via Iran? United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - 11/27/2006 8:21:00 AM -0500 WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The Iraq war, civil or not, is costing $226 million a day -- or $8 billion a month, $76 billion a year. Hard to figure out what to call it when Iraqis are killing Iraqis by the score every day and when the U.S. has been fighting and dying there longer than its involvement in World War II. Iraq also has a civil war within a civil war -- insurgency interspersed by sectarian warfare against a Shiite-led government. There are 23 armed militias in Baghdad alone. Each government minister and scores of tribal leaders have their own self-defense force. Some 2 million Iraqis have fled their homes, the equivalent of 30 million Americans displaced by war. Jordan, a small country of 5 million now has to cope with 1.5 million Iraqis who have strained essential services to the breaking point and driven real estate and rentals beyond the reach of even well-to-do Jordanians. The costly effort in blood and treasure to foster democracy in Iraq is clearly beyond our reach. Henry Kissinger, the chief mandarin of geopoliticians, who negotiated the 1973 agreements that ended the Vietnam War, says Iraq is unwinnable. If by victory, he explained, we mean a viable democratic Iraqi state, able to sustain itself, forget it because it can't be done. A far cry from "failure is not an option." The "go big," "go long," and "go home" options bear little relationship to the art of the possible. A broken military cannot afford to go big, unless, of course, the draft is reenacted, which a Democratic Congress would reject. To go long would require domestic support, which has waned to 30 percent. And to pack it in and go home under option three would be tantamount to surrender to America's enemies throughout the Middle East. Borne out, too, would be Osama Bin Laden's predictions about America's lack of staying power. This weekend, Jordan's king Abdullah warned against the danger of civil wars breaking out in neighboring Arab countries. Lebanon's body politic is frail, battered about by pro- and anti-Syrian forces. The victim of a 15-year civil war (1975-90), a 30-year Syrian occupation, and five political assassinations in the past 18 months, believed to be the work of Syrian agents, Lebanon is kept on edge by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed state within a state that humiliated Israel in last summer's 34-day war. Vice President Cheney's brief visit to Saudi Arabia for a two-hour exchange with king Abdullah (actually one-hour when time is deducted for translation) left no doubt about the regional disaster that would follow a precipitous U.S. exit. But Abdullah, like his opposite numbers in Jordan and Egypt, is not anxious to pitch in with his own troops in security roles, which could spark embarrassing domestic opposition. President Bush's quick round trip to Jordan this week to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was hopefully to persuade him to crack down on anti-U.S. militias, particularly Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army. But no sooner was the meeting announced than Sadr said that if Maliki went through with it, he would order his followers out of the coalition government. The fiery cleric also commands a bloc of 30 swing votes in parliament. There wasn't much Maliki could do to disband the Mahdi army. A blend of religious fanaticism and pitiless ambition, he revels at U.S. discomfiture, a sort of Islamic Schadenfreude. He listens to Aytollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite prelate, who has advised him to keep his powder dry against American forces. Meanwhile, he continues to build his army with Iranian funding and weapons. Iraq's partition, into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish mini states, as advocated by Sen. Joe Biden, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is a recipe for a larger civil war. Most towns and villages have mixed populations of Sunnis and Shiites. All sides anxiously await the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group's findings. It is already common knowledge they will recommend talking to U.S. opponent Syria and U.S. enemy Iran. Members of ISG have already spoken to both. Iran now wields more influence in Iraq than the United States. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is flying to Tehran this week for a summit meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been invited to join them. Iraq's last two prime ministers, foreign ministers and holders of other government portfolios have already made the diplomatic pilgrimage to Tehran. They apologized for Saddam Hussein's eight-year war (1980-88) against Iran and twice returned with a $1 billion gift. The first billion was earmarked for schools and hospitals and last week's second billion was for assistance in restoring the country's power grid and linking it to Iran's. Iran can either facilitate or humiliate a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Key mullahs are now saying Iran should assist a U.S. exit that would enhance Iran's regional power. The argument, put forward by Moshen Rezai, secretary of the government's "Expediency Council," states that "America's arrival in the region presented Iran with an historic opportunity." "The kind of service that the Americans, with all their hatred, have done us," said Rezai, "no superpower has ever done anything similar. America destroyed all our enemies in the region. It destroyed the Taliban. It destroyed Saddam Hussein...It did all this in order to confront us face to face, and in order to place us under siege. But the American teeth got so stuck in the soil of Iraq and Afghanistan that if they manage to drag themselves back to Washington in one piece, they should thank Allah." America, therefore, "presents us with an opportunity rather than a threat -- not because it intended to, but because its estimates were wrong and made many mistakes," argued Rezai. Washington, he said, "has now despaired of toppling the Islamic Republic. The threats we face...are about blocking Iran's influence in the region. This is a vital national interest and the entire nuclear dispute revolves around it." Rezai said, "now that the Democrats have both houses of Congress," it was incumbent upon Iran to "behave reasonably." America's policies and goals in the Middle East won't change, he concluded, but methods will and "put aside Bush's warmongering methods," and both countries "will stay clear of aggressive confrontations." This is not exactly a get-out-Iraq-free card. Iran is not about to forgo its nuclear ambitions. But there is plenty to talk about. Muzzling Muqtada al-Sadr's and his Mahdi army and continuing to help, as Iran has, the Maliki government is a good place to start. Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 2 AFP: West must accept a nuclear Iran: Guards chief - [A technician moves a piece of equipment inside the Bushehr nuclear power plant] TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief General Yahya Rahim Safavi has said the West should accept Tehran as a nuclear power in the Middle East,a news agency has reported. "Superpowers have reached the conclusion that a powerful Iran is an unbeatable country in the region, and they must accept Iran as a regional power with peaceful nuclear energy," Rahim Safavi was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying in a speech to the Islamic volunteer Basij militia on Monday. "They should get along with Iran and establish positive interaction," he added. Rahim Safavi also accused Europe, Israel, the United States and some Arab nations which he did not name of ganging up against the Islamic republic. "What connects the Americans to these countries is a joint objective to prevent Iran from becoming the first-rate power in the region in economic, intellectual, military and political aspects," he said. The major powers have been debating a draft UN resolution drawn up by Britain, France and Germany that would impose limited sanctions on Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile sectors over Tehran's failure to comply with an earlier UN resolution on halting uranium enrichment. The US seeks to impose tough sanctions but faces opposition from two permanent Security Council members, China and Russia, which have major trade and energy ties with Iran. The West claims Iran is running a secret nuclear military program parallel to its civilian one, an allegation vehemently denied by Tehran which says its nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful and aimed at producing electricity. AFP ***************************************************************** 3 AFP: NKorean nuclear talks envoys converge on Beijing - by Dan Martin Mon Nov 27, 10:47 AM ET BEIJING (AFP) - Diplomatic efforts to kickstart the stalled six-nation talks on North Korea " /> North Korea's nuclear program have got underway in Beijing as envoys to the negotiations converged on the Chinese capital. The United States' chief negotiator to the six-nation forum, Christopher Hill, said after arriving on Monday afternoon that he remained hopeful of the fully-fledged talks resuming soon, ending a year-long hiatus. Hill, who held meetings in Beijing last week with China's envoy to the talks, Wu Dawei, joined top envoys from Japan and South Korea " /> South Koreaalready in Beijing. South Korean and Japanese press reports said the North Korean representative to the talks, Kim Kye-Gwan, may fly in, although officials from the other six-party nations could not confirm this. It looked unlikely that the envoys would all meet together here, with the focus instead on bilateral meetings aimed at setting a date for restarting the talks. "We'll be talking to our Chinese hosts again about a date," Hill said at Beijing airport, before repeating the US position that it was vital to ensure beforehand that substantial progress would be made when the talks resumed. "Again the issue for us is to make sure we are extremely well planned for six-party talks, which we expect to get going again very soon." Hill did not give any indication whether he planned to meet North Korea's Kim in Beijing this week. "We've always said we are prepared to meet with DPRK (North Korean) officials in the context of six-party talks but let me first talk to the Chinese and see what they have in mind," he said. South Korean envoy Chun Yung-Woo, who arrived on Monday morning, said he intended to meet only with China's Wu, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. Japan's top negotiator, Kenichiro Sasae, flew to Beijing on Sunday and met with Wu on Monday, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported. Officials at the Japanese embassy could immediately confirm Sasae's meeting with Wu. The six-nation talks, which also include Russia, were launched in 2003 to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, but broke down a year ago when Pyongyang walked out in protest at US financial sanctions against it. Resumption of the talks took on a new urgency after the North staged its first nuclear test on October 9, sparking international condemnation and United Nations " /> United Nationssanctions. Pyongyang agreed on October 31 to return to the negotiating table after a day of secret meetings in Beijing between Hill, North Korea's Kim and China's Wu. However, the parties have since been unable to announce a start date. And despite its decision to return to the negotiating table, a top North Korean diplomat said last week that Pyongyang would not give up its nuclear weapons. "How can we abandon our nuclear weapons? Do you mean that we conducted a nuclear test to give them up?" Yonhap quoted first vice foreign minister Kang Sok-Ju as saying. Nevertheless, Hill said after his meeting with Wu last week he hoped the talks would resume in the middle of December. Yonhap quoted South Korea's Chun after his arrival in Beijing on Monday morning as saying that the onus was on North Korea to ensure the six-party talks got underway again. "The important thing is North Korea's political will to dismantle its nuclear weapons, not what we demand," Chun said, according to Yonhap. "The North is well aware of what it should do." It was not known whether Russia's envoy planned to visit Beijing this week. A spokesman at the Russian embassy in Beijing said he had no information. China, which remains North Korea's closest ally despite its unhappiness over Kim Jong-Il's regime continuing to pursue its nuclear program, has always hosted the six-party talks. Copyright 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 4 AFP: Journalists from two Koreas to hold first-ever talks - Mon Nov 27, 1:57 AM ET SEOUL (AFP) - Journalists from communist North and capitalist South Korea " /> South Koreaare to hold their first ever meeting this week to discuss reconciliation despite tensions over last month's nuclear test, South Korean organizers have said. The two-day meeting starting Tuesday at Mount Kumgang tourist resort in the North will group 123 reporters from South Korea and 50 from the North, the Journalists Association of (South) Korea said in a statement quoted by Yonhap news agency. Journalists from the two sides last met in 1946, two years before the peninsula was formally partitioned. It had been divided into US and Soviet zones of influence after its colonizer Japan was defeated in 1945. The organizers said the focus of the meeting would be on ways to promote calls for peace and reconciliation which were made after the first and only inter-Korean summit on June 15, 2000. "Both will discuss how to implement the June 15 Joint Declaration in the journalistic field while discussing ways to boost peace on the Korean peninsula," they said. The organizers expressed hope the meeting would help break the deadlock in relations. All official contacts were suspended after the North's nuclear test on October 9. Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 Inside Bay Area: Scientists boost Bush's plan for nuclear arsenal By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated:11/27/2006 02:41:02 AM PST In swapping out an older nuclear warhead for a newer, safer one, weapons scientists suggested they had bolstered the feasibility of a Bush administration plan to replace the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal. That plan calls for designing and manufacturing simpler, hardier bombs and warheads, called "reliable replacement warheads," some perhaps generic enough to fly on different missiles or aircraft. Scientists worked through part of that problem over the last three years in deciding that the W87 warhead, designed for the defunct Peacekeeper missile, could fly on the Minuteman III missile, the nation's last silo-based ICBM. The same computer simulations and experiments, they argued, might be used to put replacement warheads on a variety of missiles. "I think it does establish that this is a do-able thing," said Derek Watman, weapons engineering chief for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. For Princeton University physicist Frank von Hippel, "that's a stretch." Debate over the new replacement warheads instead has been focused on a tougher question: Should the nation make and deploy redesigned H-bombs without ever having tested them in a nuclear explosion? "The question really is whether this thing will work, not whether you can fasten it on a missile," said von Hippel, co-director of Princeton's Program in Science and Global Security. "It's whether you can have confidence in an untested warhead." 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 6 Blix vs Blair (but this time it is over British weapons of mass destruction) Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 13:40:36 -0600 (CST) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-DSPAM-Result: mail; result="Innocent"; class="Innocent"; probability=0.0000; confidence=1.00; signature=N/A X-Spam-Class: HAM Blix vs Blair (but this time it is over our weapons of mass destruction) By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor Published: 27 November 2006 Dr Hans Blix, the former UN weapons inspector, will launch a new attack on Tony Blair today, warning that the decision to press ahead with a full replacement for Trident will make it more difficult to stop Iran acquiring the bomb. The respected chairman of the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction will use a speech in London to renew hostilities with Mr Blair. He will say that modernising Britain's arsenal puts the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) under "strain" and increases the feeling among non-nuclear states, such as Iran, that they are being "cheated" by the nuclear states. Dr Blix will take Britain and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council - America, China, Russia and France - to task for failing to comply with their obligations under the NPT by failing to do more to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. He will point out "the strong feelings of frustration" at the way nuclear nations "are in the process" of developing new types of weapons rather than examining how they could manage defence needs with non-nuclear weaponry. His remarks, in a speech to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, follow the decision of the Cabinet last Thursday to "whip" a decision on the replacement for Trident through the Commons in the new year. Although the Tories are likely to back Mr Blair, there is strong concern over the issue on the Labour back benches. Dr Blix will tell the international gathering of lawyers that his Stockholm-based WMD Commission believes the UN General Assembly should call a world summit on disarmament to revive the NPT efforts to reduce the risk of a nuclear war. He will say it is 60 years since the UN called for the elimination of all nuclear weapons, but there has been a fragmented approach to tackling nuclear proliferation. The five members of the nuclear club have been joined in recent years by Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea. The Commission, Dr Blix will say, believes top priority should be given to ratification of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, including North Korea, the latest member of the "nuclear club". Dr Blix infuriated Britain and the US before the Iraq war when, as the leader of the inspection team on WMD, he challenging the "dodgy" dossier claiming that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Rebel Labour MPs said last night he had been proved right over Saddam's WMD, and they believed he would be proved right again over Trident. MPs have been demanding a wide debate on the options. Some senior MPs, reported to include Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary, have questioned the wisdom of backing the most expensive option favoured by the chiefs of staff, instead of a cheaper alternative such as nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on planes. However, a White Paper setting out the Government's preferred option will be published next month and Labour MPs will be told to back it. They will be allowed three months for "debate" but Labour MPs will be "whipped" to support the cabinet decision in a vote in the Commons in the new year. Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, and a former member of CND, defended the decision to push the issue through Parliament on a whipped vote. "You couldn't expect a serious government in charge of one of the world's global powers, Britain, making a recommendation to Parliament and just say you can do what you like chaps ... and make your own mind up," he said on the BBC AM programme. "We're a serious government and serious Cabinet. We will put our view when that view is finalised by the Cabinet, and it hasn't been yet. We've not had a further cabinet discussion on the detail of all of this. We'll make a recommendation through a White Paper. Then there'll be a full debate." Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, has already made it clear he will support the most expensive replacement for Trident - a new generation of submarines, with US-designed missiles and a new nuclear warhead. Early estimates suggested it could cost #25bn, but some experts have claimed the true cost could be nearer #76bn over 30 years. Mr Brown's position on the issue has dismayed even some of his own supporters. Other Labour MPs rallied behind Dr Blix. Neil Gerrard, a Labour MP who tabled a Commons motion signed by more than 20 Labour colleagues warning the Trident replacement would breach the terms of the NPT, said Dr Blix would strengthen opposition. "Dr Blix was proved right on WMD and a lot of people will agree with what he is saying now," he said. "It is possible that Mr Blair will lose a majority of Labour MPs on this issue." The ending of the Cold War has changed the argument in the Labour Party. It is no longer a simple divide between those favouring multilateral disarmament and those supporting unilateral disarmament. Dr Blix's speech will increase the doubts among those who question the value of a more powerful nuclear weapon with multiple warheads designed to penetrate "hardened" targets, when the foreseeable threat is from rogue states or terrorists. Unlike in the 1980s, there are significant military figures with doubts over the renewal of Trident. A spokesman for Greenpeace, said: "Hans Blix said that invading Iraq to tackle concerns about WMD was wrong. He was proved correct. Now he's pointing out that the Labour Government building new WMD "because of an unknown future" is wrong and will destroy the UN disarmament process. Let's hope this time Labour listen." The other nuclear states * US: 10,000 warheads, Trident fleet being extended to 2,040 but developing "mini-nukes" for tactical battlefield use * FRANCE: 482 warheads on air-to-surface missiles and ballistic missiles on subs being modernised * RUSSIA: Ageing arsenal of 15,000 warheads which it is seeking to put into storage * CHINA: Unknown, but thought to have 100 to 500 nukes, mostly ageing, keen to avoid race with US * ISRAEL: 200 warheads, getting nuclear-capable subs from Germany * INDIA: 150 warheads, has not tested since 1998 but recently tested missiles. * PAKISTAN: 50 warheads. Not tested since 1990s, but tested missiles recently. * NORTH KOREA: Tested first nuclear bomb this year South Africa, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus have all disarmed http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2018719.ece ***************************************************************** 7 RIA Novosti: Russia must remain a major nuclear power Opinion & analysis - 27/ 11/ 2006 MOSCOW. (Sergei Kortunov for RIA Novosti) An all-out war or armed conflict between the great powers no longer seems possible. However, the five official nuclear powers are in no hurry to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their policy, a fact attested to by the US's new nuclear doctrine, loose rules of engagement for using nuclear weapons in the event of a crisis and greater regional tensions. Russia therefore has no choice but to remain a major nuclear power in the foreseeable future. It is our opinion that, depending on the global military-political situation, by 2012 Russia's strategic nuclear forces should have * about 600 ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles; * ten to 12 SSBNs (ballistic missile submarines); * 50 strategic bombers for carrying nuclear and conventional weapons; * 1,000 to 1,200 nuclear warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs (submarine launched ballistic missiles). Moscow would therefore be able to maintain its special strategic relationship with the United States and preserve its global political role. Russia and the United States have managed to conclude the legally binding Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions stipulating a ceiling of 1,700-2,200 warheads in the next decade. But the Russian side had initially insisted on a more comprehensive treaty that would call for irreversible and controlled strategic arms reductions. Moreover, Washington has refused to formalize its assurances that the National Missile Defense (NMD) system will only be able to intercept several dozen warheads. Consequently, the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions does not stipulate irreversible and controlled reductions; nor does it place any limitations on the potential of ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) systems. In effect, this treaty merely reduces the combat readiness of strategic offensive arms and does not provide for disarmament or arms control measures. The United States will not scrap any strategic delivery vehicles or their warheads, meaning that Washington can beef up its strategic forces anytime. But Russia has to spend a lot on scrapping its aging strategic offensive arms because of their specific features, as well as the lack of co-production arrangements between post-Soviet republics and some other factors. Moscow, which has no alternative but to fulfill the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions, must also modify its nuclear policy. We must face the facts: the United States will create the NMD system in the near future and completely dominate the world unless Russia's nuclear policy adapts to the above-mentioned priorities. If possible, Moscow should continue to negotiate with Washington and suggest a joint search for ways of minimizing risks that stem from the current mutual nuclear deterrence situation. However, given the current attitude of the Bush Administration towards bilateral and multilateral strategic offensive arms control, such agreements seem unlikely. Under these circumstances, we should study the possibility of resuming work on weapons and systems that can effectively breach or neutralize the US ABM system. In his state of the nation address, Russian President Vladimir Putin said "work is already under way on creating ... maneuverable combat units that will have an unpredictable flight trajectory for the potential opponent." But this is not enough, because such weapons were contemplated during the Soviet period. Experts believe the cheapest option is to implement a set of active and passive measures for protecting Russia's strategic nuclear forces. The most likely scenario involves parallel unilateral reductions in both the US's and Russia's nuclear arsenals without any mutual agreement or prior consultations. These cuts will depend on technical and economic expediency factors. Such a situation would mean the end of arms control as we know it, and politicians, diplomats, military leaders and the general public might find it disorienting. Sergei Kortunov is Chairman of the Foreign Policy Planning Committee The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board. 2005 RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 8 BBC: Tories plan business carbon tax Last Updated: Monday, 27 November 2006 [George Osborne] George Osborne wants to tax business carbon emissions The Conservatives are planning a carbon tax on British businesses, shadow chancellor George Osborne has said. This would raise more money than the existing climate change levy, he told the CBI conference, and would be "offset" by tax cuts elsewhere. "We want to shift the tax burden away from income and investment and onto pollution," Mr Osborne said. Money currently raised by the levy subsidises energy-saving investments and national insurance reductions. 'Opposite direction' Mr Osborne said: "The chancellor decided to increase National Insurance and at the same time reduce the proportion of taxes collected by green taxes. "We want to go in the opposite direction." The Conservatives' tax proposal is called the "carbon levy". Mr Osborne told business leaders: "I would like your thoughts and input into the exact design of the carbon levy - but let me stress, any additional revenues that it raises will be offset by reductions in other business taxes. That is a guarantee." The climate change levy was introduced in April 2001 to cut emissions from business. There's the assumption th we'll do the clever stuff, we'll move up the value chain, and leave the Chinese and Indians to do cheap things George Osborne Shadow chancellor Companies can often recoup the money through the energy they save and can also avoid payments by using renewable - but not nuclear - energy. BBC economics editor Evan Davis said the climate change levy raised less than 1bn per year, and that the carbon levy was the first substantive proposal by the Conservatives for a new environmental tax. There were no plans by the Tories to tax households directly on their carbon emissions, he added. 'Abandoned issues' The Conservatives have said they want green taxes to form a higher proportion of all taxes, although they do not want the overall tax take to rise. Mr Osborne told the CBI conference in London that his party was not becoming "anti-business". "For too long my party abandoned issues like the environment, flexible working, and social responsibility to our opponents on the left. "So I make absolutely no apology that we have been talking about the new business agenda." Mr Osborne also warned against misunderstanding globalisation, saying: "I think there are quite a lot of lazy assumptions out there that we need to confront. "There's the assumption that we'll do the clever stuff, we'll move up the value chain, and leave the Chinese and Indians to do cheap things. "Let me tell you - no one has told them that." ***************************************************************** 9 BBC: 'Unlawful' nuclear upgrade Last Updated: Monday, 27 November 2006 [Aldermaston protest] Many of the protesters turned up dressed as UN weapons inspectors More than 100 protesters have gathered at an atomic research base claiming any plans to update the UK's nuclear defences are unlawful. Greenpeace campaigners gathered at Berkshire's Aldermaston atomic weapons establishment (AWE), to voice anger at renewal of the Trident system. MPs are to vote on whether Trident will be replaced next year but protesters claim replacement work is under way. Greenpeace claims this breaches the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The AWE demonstration was given the name the "world's biggest ever weapons inspection". Our aim today is to facilita a lawful and peaceful protest Supt Robin Rickard Many of the Greenpeace protesters turned up dressed as UN weapons inspectors. Among them was Anita Roddick, founder of Body Shop, who said: "Sixty years ago we invented a way to extinguish life on Earth at the touch of a button, which was one of the less impressive things human beings ever did. "Now Tony Blair has the chance to leave an historic legacy to the world by making Britain the first UN Security Council member to say we no longer want or need these monstrous weapons. "If he doesn't, he'll break international treaties and send an invitation to every nation on Earth to join the nuclear club." [Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment] AWE is the headquarters of Britain's nuclear development programme The claims are based on advice given to the campaign group by Phillippe Sands QC, a critic of government plans to upgrade the Trident system. By developing new nuclear weaponry, Greenpeace claims, Article 6 - an agreement to nuclear disarmament - of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is being broken. AWE, which is the headquarters of Britain's nuclear development programme, said it did not want to comment on the future of Trident, but that it recognises people's right to demonstrate peacefully and lawfully. Police officers were sent to monitor the research facility protest and one arrest was made. Last month, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said Trident missiles were not being replaced at the site, but equipment needed to be replaced along with retiring staff. Vote in 2007 Building work and the creation of hundreds of jobs led Greenpeace to claim new nuclear developments were under way at the site. Earlier this month Downing Street revealed MPS would vote early next year on whether Trident, whose working life is due to end in 2024, should be replaced. Ministers are to outline their favoured option - expected to be a replacement for Trident - in a white paper to be published in December. Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown have both indicated their support for retaining an independent nuclear weapons system. ***************************************************************** 10 Guardian Unlimited: Comment is free: Nuclear chain reaction guardian.co.uk John Palmer Opposition to Trident could trigger a win for the SNP, which in turn could generate a push for independence and the euro. November 27, 2006 05:22 PM The increasingly desperate-sounding calls from Labour leaders to the party faithful in Scotland to prepare for a life-or-death struggleagainst the Scottish National party comes on the heels of the cabinet's decision - come hell or high water - to drive the modernisation or replacement of Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system through his party and parliament. It is difficult to think of something better calculated to play into the hands of the SNP. As Iain Macwhirter reminded us, the vast majority of Scottish people do not want Trident and demand that the nuclear base at Faslane is removed from Scottish soil. As matters stand Labour is heading for a humiliating defeat in its traditional Scottish heartland next May. According to the latest YouGov poll, the SNP already enjoys a substantial lead over Labour among Scottish voters. A convincing win for the SNP in the elections to the Scottish parliament next year would generate new momentum behind the demand for independence. With an ICM poll in the Sunday Telegraph showing a clear majority of English voters in favour of dismantling the United Kingdom the London establishment could find it much harder this time to win the case for union. It is true that the SNP will need to find coalition partners to take office in Edinburgh. The Scottish Greens would certainly back the SNP in demanding an end to the Trident nuclear base at Faslane. Although Tommy Sheridan's anti-Trident, pro-independence Solidarity party will need time to recover from the split among the Scottish socialists, it may yet win seats next May. As Iain Macwhirter points out, more leading Scottish Tories - the latest being Michael Fry - have now come out for independence. The most likely coalition partners for the SNP are the Liberal Democrats. They will not be keen to agree to a full-blown referendum on independence during the life of the next Scottish parliament. But they will not have missed the opinion poll evidence showing a small - but measurable - majority support for Scottish independence. They will also know that the Blair government's obsession - no matter what the expense - to maintain and enhance Britain's capacity to unleash nuclear devastation will strengthen the move of public opinion flowing towards independence. The shape of a future independent Scotland remains unclear. But getting there will involve negotiations not only between Edinburgh and London but also between Edinburgh, London and Brussels. If Scotland is to become an independent state in the European Union, the consequences for the UK state within the EU will be very far reaching. The number of votes the UK is entitled to cast within the EU council of ministers would be sharply reduced - and the balance transferred to the new Scottish state. Mind you, a reduction in the powers of the UK to block EU decisions will cause few tears elsewhere. Scotland would also - subject to future treaty changes - be entitled to nominate a member of the European commission. A common complaint heard in Scotland is that its economy needs lower interest rates than are being set by the Bank of England. If and when independence within the EU comes to be negotiated this could open the debate on whether an independent Scotland should join the euro. After all real interest rates (nominal rates adjusted for inflation) just now are lower in the euro zone than in the UK. In this event a political border between Scotland a rump British state might also become a currency frontier between sterling and the growing number of countries in the euro area. Even short of outright independence, the polarised political atmosphere in Scotland after the next Scottish elections may make an eventual closure of the Faslane nuclear base inevitable. A new home would then have to be found for Trident - almost certainly somewhere in England. Wales and Northern Ireland are most unlikely to volunteer to house the new system. The consequences of the Blair government's determination to turn its back on nuclear non-proliferation will last much longer than ministers seem to understand. The ultimate irony is that Blair's Iraq war and Trident bequests to his Labour successors may now help set the scene for the break-up of the UK. Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006. Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396 Registered office: 164 Deansgate, Manchester M60 2RR Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions ***************************************************************** 11 Japan Times: Nagasaki to opt out of nuke plans | japantimes.co.jp Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006 NAGASAKI (Kyodo) Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito said Monday his city will not establish plans for evacuation or other measures to be taken in the event of a nuclear attack. Ito said such plans are unrealistic and instead urged the government to try to eradicate nuclear weapons. He said the extent of damage from a nuclear attack predicted by the central government and the measures to be taken under its basic plan are vague and that trying to evacuate people in the event of such an attack would never work. Ito said Nagasaki will come up with its own emergency evacuation plans that do not assume a nuclear attack. The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 12 UPI: Analysis: Who killed Alexander Litvinenko? United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - 11/27/2006 1:42:00 PM -0500 By STEFAN NICOLA UPI Germany Correspondent BERLIN, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The mysterious poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko has cast a dark shadow on the Kremlin, as he had investigated two high-profile affairs that have the potential to seriously embarrass the Russian government. One of the last photographs taken of the former KGB and FSB spy foreshadowed what was soon to come: Lying on a large white pillow in a London hospital with tubes attached to his chest, his head bald and eyes barely open, Litvinenko resembled a cancer patient in his final hours. When he succumbed last Thursday to the radioactive and thus poisonous isotope polonium-210 that unidentified individuals had managed to feed into his body, doctors lost a relentless fight to save the 43-year-old's life. The case has now been turned over to Scotland Yard, and it is one of the most high-profile spy killings in the country's history since the man whom Litvinenko charged with his murder sits at the helm of the Russian government. "You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life," said Litvinenko's statement, read out by fellow dissident and friend Alex Goldfarb last Friday. "May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people." The Kremlin has of course denied any involvement in the killing, calling such allegations "absolute nonsense." Before his mysterious poisoning, Litvinenko probed the assassination of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Moscow has come under attack after Politkovskaya, one of the most fiercely anti-Kremlin Russian media figures, was found shot dead on Oct. 7 in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow. But evidence in the Politkovskaya case may not have been Litvinenko's hottest material: The London Times reported Monday that he had also drawn up an extensive dossier -- which is now in the hands of Scotland Yard -- dealing with the Kremlin's forced takeover of oil firm Yukos. Litvinenko had given the dossier to Leonid Nevzlin, the former deputy head of Yukos, who fled to Israel after Moscow sold off his company. "Alexander had information on crimes committed with the Russian Government's direct participation," Nevzlin told the London Times after he had given the file to the authorities. Investigators confirmed rumors that Litvinenko had managed to uncover "startling" new material in the affair, which has seen several former Yukos officials disappear or die in mysterious circumstances while the company's former head and the most prominent Yukos victim, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has been jailed. Litvinenko, in the hours and days before his death, apparently passed on the names of a number of people linked to the Kremlin that have targeted him. "At present we have a bewildering number of theories and names put to us, and we must establish some firm evidence," one individual close to the investigation told the London Times. The long list of enemies comes at no surprise: Litvinenko for the past six years has repeatedly published criticism of Putin and the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor to the KGB; he wrote a book called 'Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within,' alleging that the Russian spy service orchestrated the 1999 apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people and were later used to justify military offensives in Chechnya. At the time, the former spy was already in seemingly safe London, where in 2000, he sought political asylum after he had left Russia because he faced prison time there because of spectacular allegations against the FSB. In 1998, Litvinenko, then a FSB specialist who fought terrorism and organized crime, announced at a news conference that his superiors had ordered him to kill Boris Berezovsky, who at the time was one of Boris Yeltsin's top security officials. Litvinenko was arrested and imprisoned, and fled to Britain soon after his release; Berezovsky did the same. In the past years, the Kremlin has tried to polish Russia's image; with the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Moscow managed to up the government's standing abroad. The two recent murders, however, have severely tarnished Russia's image and could significantly cloud EU-Russian relations. In light of the latest spy killing, politicians in Western Europe have urged their governments to press Moscow with their concerns. Menzies Campbell, a British opposition politician, according to the London Times said the government should have been "much tougher" on Putin and added that British-Russian relations would have to be re-considered if Litvinenko's killing was due to "state terrorism." Government officials in Britain and in Germany are much less aggressive, and critics say this is due to Europe's growing dependence on Russian energy supplies. Russian-EU relations have recently been quite rocky in the wake of bilateral tensions with Poland and Georgia. But Andreas Schockenhoff, responsible for German-Russian relations for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, said the reasons were different. "We must not put Russia under general suspicion," he told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper. Observers note it wouldn't make much sense for Moscow to go to great lengths and risk internationl isolation to eliminate a man who, despite his fierce and numerous anti-Kremlin writings, never managed to destabilize Putin. On the other hand, polonium-210, the radioactive isotope found in Litvinenko's body, points to either a state-sponsored assassin or at least one who is able to pull some strings: A very rare element in nature, polonium is found in uranium ores at very low quantities and getting your hands onto it is extremely difficult, Andrea Sella, a chemistry professor at University College London, told the London Times. "This is not the sort of thing that amateurs could have cooked up in a bathtub. You would have to go to a nuclear lab such as Oak Ridge, Los Alamos or Harwell -- or to one of the Russian ones." Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 UPI: Top nuclear negotiators reach Beijing 11/27/2006 4:17:00 PM -0500 BEIJING, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Nuclear negotiators from North Korea, Japan and the United States arrived in Beijing Monday to discuss resuming six-nation talks on Pyongyang's program. The arrival of Japanese negotiator Kenichiro Sasae was followed by Chun Yung Woo from Pyongyang, and then the chief U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have been stalled since last November with Pyongyang refusing to return to the talks because of U.S. economic sanctions against it. Days after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test Oct. 9, Pyongyang announced its willingness to return to talks on its nuclear program. Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 14 Guardian Unlimited: Renewing Trident would break international law, say protesters | Matthew Tempest and agencies Monday November 27, 2006 Guardian Unlimited [A Trident missile] A Trident missile. Photograph: AP. Several hundred protesters this morning descended on the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Institute for what Greenpeace, the organisers, called the world's biggest-ever nuclear weapons inspection. The demonstrators were objecting to building work at the top-secret site which they claim heralds a new generation of new nuclear weapons. A Liberal Democrat MP, Norman Baker, and the founder of the Body Shop, Anita Roddick, joined around 400 demonstrators intending to pin legal advice that renewing the Trident nuclear weapons system would be against international law on to the security fence. Article continues Superintendent Robin Rickard, of Thames Valley police, said that his officers were guarding the AWE to ensure that the protest passed off peacefully. Ben Stewart, a spokesman for Greenpeace who attended the event, said: "The decision on Trident is exactly the same as Tony Blair's hypocrisy over the Iraq war and civil nuclear power. "First he makes the decision in secret. Then he demands a public debate." He added: "We are going to take photographs and pin legal advice to the fence suggesting that the government's Trident renewal would be illegal according to international law." According to Greenpeace, Philippe Sands QC, of Cherie Booth's Matrix Chambers, has ruled that Mr Blair's policy could break the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, risking a breach of the same protocols he says that Iran must adhere to. Renewal, replacement or upgrading of Trident is likely to breach Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Mr Sands claims. Anita Roddick told the crowd at Aldermaston, in pouring rain: "Sixty years ago we invented a way to extinguish life on Earth at the touch of a button, which was one of the less impressive things human beings ever did. "Now Tony Blair has the chance to leave an historic legacy to the world by making Britain the first UN security council member to say, 'We no longer want or need these monstrous weapons.' "If he doesn't, he'll break international treaties and send an invitation to every nation on Earth to join the nuclear club." At prime minister's question time last week, Mr Blair confirmed that a white paper on replacing Trident would be published before Christmas. Although he has promised MPs a general vote on the issue - a substantial minority of Labour MPs is opposed - the Liberal Democrats are demanding a full debate and vote on a range of issues, including non-replacement and alternative weapons systems. Email your comments for publication to politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk [UP] Guardian Unlimited Guardian News and Media Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 15 TMI: Use volunteers for evacuation in case of an emergency at Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:05:07 -0800 X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61] X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61 X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST EDITORIALS READINESS Use volunteers for evacuation in case of an emergency at TMI Sunday, November 26, 2006 Trying to anticipate and plan for an emergency evacuation is an important exercise. We saw what happened in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck. Preparation is everything, and no one should assume that a disaster can't happen. In the best of all worlds, the Unit 1 nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island will continue to operate in stellar fashion. That would be unlike its twin Unit 2, which suffered a serious meltdown of the reactor core shortly after it began operation in 1979. It was the nation's worst acci dent at a commercial nuclear plant, and it prompted thousands of residents to flee the area. Advertisement A review of current emergency readiness plans found serious problems, in particular a lack of buses and drivers to evacuate people who don't have their own vehicles. Dauphin County emergency officials estimate that they're about 250 vehicles and more than 450 personnel short of what would be required to get all the people unlikely to have cars -- including schoolchildren, occupants of nursing homes and hospitals, and the poor -- to safety. Possibly as many as 3,000 people could be stranded in the event of a rapidly unfolding event, officials estimate. At least a partial answer to these unmet emergency needs would be to employ the human vehicular resources of the at-risk community. An emergency registry, regularly updated, would match individuals in the risk area who don't have transportation with a neighbor who has a vehicle with room to take additional people beyond family. There should be back-up arrangements in the event the transporter is away at the time of the accident. Others with vehicles could be assigned to go to general pick-up areas, or a particular nursing home or school, to transport evacuees who need a lift. Also needed are 406 ambulance personnel and 56 bus drivers. The emergency registry could call for volunteers to learn the skills required during an emergency to assist the evacuation. Retired professional and school bus drivers could be asked to register for emergency duty, should it be necessary. We urge emergency officials to call on residents in the at-risk community to volunteer to do their part to help their neighbors during an evacuation. Officials should set up informational and training sessions, keeping them brief and to the point, to facilitate the registry. Not only will such an effort tap the reserves of volunteerism and community spirit that are rich in this area, they will have immeasurable value in the event of a true disaster by making the public all the more informed about what to do and where to go without panic. ***************************************************************** 16 [du-list] Free downloads of ECRR Chernobyl book Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:10:21 -0800 X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61] X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61 X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST ----- Original Message ----- Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 6:01 AM Subject: Free downloads of ECRR Chernobyl book Free downloads of ECRR Chernobyl book In March this year the European Committee on Radiation Risk published a collection of reports from Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia, and across Europe, showing a wide range of diseases increasing in frequency and severity since the Chernobyl disaster. The picture it presents is dramatically different from claims that there are no discernible health effects apart from the deaths of a few firemen and up to 2000 mostly curable thyroid cancers. In the crazed view of some nuclear apologists, all the illness is due to social disruption, alcohol and radiophobia. The ECRR committee have announced that they are concerned to make their book, with its important evidence of the true costs of nuclear pollution, available to the widest possible readership. A 4 megabyte pdf is on the ECRR web site http://www.euradcom.org/ and can be downloaded free of charge. As the International Commission on Radiological Protection moves towards publishing new Recommendations which totally ignore Chernobyl, we urge you to read the ECRR book and tell other people about its new availability. We understand that printed copies can still be bought through the ECRR site. Low Level Radiation Campaign [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Members | Calendar To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. e1065.jpg Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Visit Your Group SPONSORED LINKS * California energy * Science lab equipment * Increase energy level * Life science research * Life sciences Yahoo! News Sports News Get up to the minute sports news New web site? Drive traffic now. Get your business on Yahoo! search. Sitebuilder Free Download Build your web site in minutes. . e107e.jpg __,_._,___ Attachment Converted: e1065.jpg: 00000001,20c7e810,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: e107e.jpg: 00000001,20c7e811,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 17 Sydney Morning Herald: Beattie to ban nuclear power stations - www.smh.com.au November 27, 2006 - 2:49PM Premier Peter Beattie says he will ensure Queenslanders get a vote on nuclear power if the federal government ultimately decides to go down that path. The state government plans to pass laws banning the building of nuclear facilities in Queensland. And if the Howard government decides to go ahead anyway, voters will be asked in a statewide poll whether they support a nuclear industry. Former Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski last week released a landmark report on the possible future of the nuclear energy industry in Australia, concluding 25 nuclear reactors could produce a third of the country's electricity by 2050. The regional cities of Townsville, Rockhampton and Mackay have been mentioned as possible sites. But Mr Beattie said new laws would be introduced to state parliament this week banning uranium enrichment plants, nuclear power stations and nuclear waste sites. "Under the Howard government, Queensland communities face the very real threat of becoming home to nuclear reactors and a dumping ground for dangerous nuclear waste," Mr Beattie said. Mr Beattie claimed the federal government was pushing ahead with its plans for nuclear power without considering environmental and safety issues and the future of the coal and minerals industry. He acknowledged the federal government could overrule Queensland, but said such a move would be dangerous if the majority of Queenslanders had voted to oppose a nuclear industry. "We are not going to make it easy for them," Mr Beattie said. The state government has been advised in a recent report that nuclear power uses more water than coal-fired power stations and could lead to higher electricity prices. Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney said Mr Beattie was playing politics with an important issue. "Instead of just playing silly political games the premier should be engaging in an intellectual debate on the issue of whether or not to use nuclear power in Queensland," Mr Seeney said. "Personally, I am not against looking at the use of nuclear power. "However, I believe that it will not be economically viable in a state like Queensland where there is an abundance of good quality coal." A spokesman for federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said the move was premature. "We should have a genuine community debate first rather than say an outright `no' to it now," the spokeswoman said. She said any decision on the location of nuclear facilities would be based on commercial factors. Queensland Conservation Council coordinator Nigel Parratt welcomed the move. "It's certainly a proven technology with regard to power generation but the environmental factors that do crop up with the use of nuclear power are significant," Mr Parratt said. 2006 AAP Brought to you by [aap] Copyright 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 18 Sydney Morning Herald: Nuclear report may lead to carbon tax - www.smh.com.au November 27, 2006 - 3:40PM Finance Minister Nick Minchin says the government will consider a carbon tax on industry if other countries introduce carbon pricing as part of a global agreement to cut emissions. But the government would not introduce a carbon tax just to make nuclear power more competitive with coal, he said. Stung by polls showing most Australians are dissatisfied with its response to global warming, the government used the resumption of parliament to spruik its greenhouse credentials, following the release of the Switkowski report on nuclear power. The draft report of the government's nuclear task force found nuclear power was not yet viable in Australia but may become feasible if a price was placed on carbon emissions. Senator Minchin said carbon pricing was a separate issue to that of nuclear power in the debate about climate change and Australia's future energy needs. He maintained Australia would not introduce a carbon tax but would consider doing so as part of a multilateral response to climate change. "In no circumstances should it be said or asserted that in order to make nuclear viable this government will therefore move in the direction of some sort of carbon tax or carbon pricing," Senator Minchin told parliament. "We are prepared to contemplate some sort of price signal for carbon if it is part of a global approach, one that will not unfairly disadvantage this country. "Otherwise you simply get the industries that are greenhouse-gas intensive moving to those countries that aren't part of a carbon pricing system. "That would simply disadvantage this country, put people out of work, with no benefit to the globe." 2006 AAP Brought to you by [aap] Copyright 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 19 Charlotte Observer: Serving as energy roadmap | 11/27/2006 | Carolinas can lead nation on policy for our energy future JIM ROGERS AND ELLEN RUFF SPECIAL TO THE OBSERVER With the election behind us, our elected officials are turning their attention from politics to policy. Now is the right time to take a fresh look some critical issues affecting our economy. We'll touch on one: energy. Over the years, lawmakers and regulators have worked hard to help keep energy costs competitive -- creating jobs and sustaining existing ones while protecting our air, water and land. Given the pressures of today's marketplace, this balancing act will become increasingly difficult. Harmonizing the future energy, economic and environmental needs of our nation requires long-term thinking now. Producton costs rising To develop a comprehensive energy plan, we'll need as many thoughtful voices as possible engaged in the dialogue. We must work together to identify the energy, economic and environmental dots before we can connect them. Here's what we can see today.Economic growth is essential to our nation's success in our global economy. Affordable energy will continue to fuel that growth. With growth comes increasing demand for energy, squeezing supplies and driving up costs. For example, the price of coal has risen 200 percent in the last 10 years. Natural gas has had a 400 percent price increase since 1995. Uranium prices have increased 50 percent since 2001. Prices for oil-based fuels used to generate power have also risen nearly 400 percent in the last decade and are at their highest nominal levels ever recorded. This supply and demand challenge is compounded by the fact that few baseload power plants -- which generate electricity around the clock -- have been built in the United States in the last two decades. We will need new plants to keep pace with growth. We also must modernize our existing generation fleet. By installing new, cleaner-burning, highly efficient facilities, we have the option of retiring older, less-efficient coal-fired units, some of which have been around since the 1940s. Such a modernization effort will not only have a positive environmental impact, it will also bring significant economic benefits. One new coal power plant project alone could be expected to create about 1,000 construction jobs and about 100 permanent jobs. As this effort moves forward, many states are revisiting how investments in fleet modernization are recovered from customers. Large power plants take a long time to permit and build -- from five to six years for a new baseload coal plant to 10 years for a new nuclear plant. Historically, most utilities absorb all the risk during this construction period and don't begin charging customers for the plant until it is completed and in service. New payment model needed This has at least two important consequences: First, utilities incur substantial costs when they take on the entire burden of financing a large project. These increased costs are eventually passed on to consumers. Second, waiting until a plant is in service to recover any costs can result in a major jump in electric rates. As we enter a new era of building power plants, policymakers should consider ratemaking proposals for capital-intensive projects that both reduce and smooth out the eventual rate impact to consumers. Today, utilities such as Duke Energy rely on a diverse mix of fuels including coal, nuclear, natural gas and hydro to meet customers' needs. This diversity helps to insulate customers from the otherwise dramatic pricing pressures from an over-reliance on any one fuel. At Duke, we're also committed to advancing energy efficiency as a "fifth fuel." By eliminating barriers to meaningful energy efficiency efforts and providing the tools for consumers to use energy more wisely, we can smooth-out periods of peak power demand and potentially reduce overall energy consumption. Robust efficiency initiatives can also serve as a powerful carrot for economic development and the creation of jobs. But even if we find ways to use energy more efficiently, there will be increasing demand -- an example being plasma TVs and the possibility of plug-in cars. The emergence of rechargeable hybrid vehicles is tailor-made for increased research and development. With an emphasis on R&D, we should be able to channel ideas that can lift these vehicles off the drawing boards and into garages. Carolinas can be model There are even more alternatives to consider, including renewable energy. The point is, if we're going to ensure our nation's quality of life for future generations, we'll need an energy policy that connects the energy, economic and environmental dots with a portfolio of options, technologies and strategies -- and we need to start working on it now. While we recognize this as a national challenge, we in the Carolinas have the ability to lead the way with initiatives at the state level that could serve as a road map for the rest of the country. Jim Rogers is president and chief executive officer of Duke Energy Corp. He also co-chairs the National Action Plan on Energy Efficiency. Ellen Ruff is president of Duke Energy Carolinas and a member of the N.C. Economic Development Board. ***************************************************************** 20 AU ABC: Public urged to resist nuclear push ABC Queensland | Local News | Story November 2006. 13:00 (ACDT)Monday, 27 November 2006. 10:00 (AWST) The Sunshine Coast Environment Council (SCEC) says powerful people are behind the nuclear power push in Australia and they are using big money with slick public relations to convince Australians that it is safe to use. Opponents of nuclear power met in Brisbane over the weekend to plan a national plan of action. Scott Alderson from SCEC attended the workshop. He has urged Australians not to fall for the smooth talking supporters of nuclear power. "I think there has been a bit of pressure put on the community that this is the way to go and I think it has to be an open, honest debate," he said. "Look, no matter what there is nuclear waste and I think that is what it comes down to at the end of the day, it's a legacy that we leave for future generations." ***************************************************************** 21 AU ABC: Qld to ban nuclear power plants ABC Queensland | Local News | Story Monday, 27 November 2006. 15:37 (AEDT)Monday, 27 November 2006. The Queensland Government will introduce legislation into Parliament this week to prohibit the building of nuclear power facilities in Queensland. Premier Peter Beattie says the move is in reaction to a report released last week that suggests there could be 25 nuclear reactors across Australia within 50 years. Mr Beattie admits the Federal Government could override the state legislation but he says it would be a test of political will. "If the Federal Government wants to build nuclear reactors in this state or have dumping of nuclear material here, they will have to overrule this legislation" he said. "They have the power to do so but we're not going to make it easy for them. "They will have to overrule it." ***************************************************************** 22 RIA Novosti: 4 states may join ITER reactor project in 2007 - Russian scientist 27/ 11/ 2006 MOSCOW, November 27 (RIA Novosti) - An international agreement to build ITER, an experimental nuclear fusion reactor in France, may be joined next year by another four countries, the director of a Russian nuclear center said Monday. Scientists hope that the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in Caradache, southern France, will use fusion power to eventually produce safe, emissions-free energy. Yevgeny Velikhov, president of the Kurchatov Institute Research Center, said: "I know that Kazakhstan is interested in the ITER project, and it may also be joined by some Latin American countries, in particular Brazil and Mexico, as well as by Canada." He said one major obstacle to joining ITER is the "high entrance ticket - 10% of the project's cost." The project is estimated at about $10 billion, with 40% of the costs borne by the European Union and the remaining 60% split equally between the other participants. "We can guarantee that when it is built, it will almost immediately meet the design specifications - generating capacity of 500 mWt and a service life of 30 years," he said. Velikhov said the fusion power reactor is absolutely safe for people and the environment. "Nothing like what happened at Chernobyl could occur at a thermonuclear reactor. Furthermore, it does not produce any waste, such as fission products," he said. An international agreement to build the reactor was signed in Paris on November 21, 2006, by Russia, the United States, Japan, the European Union, China, South Korea, and India. The project will be launched in January 2007, and is designed to demonstrate the scientific and technological potential of nuclear fusion amid concerns over growing energy consumption and the impact of conventional fossil fuels on the environment. But the leader of the Russian Green Party said he doubts the practical expediency of building an ITER reactor. "I, as well as all independent experts, have serious doubts that this project will have any practical value. There will be none in the next 10-20 years, although, needless to say, it does have some scientific value," Alexei Yablokov said. He said talk about the project has been going on for about 30 years now, but things have not moved much beyond that. He criticized the participants in the project for what he described as incorrect prioritization in developing energy resources. "The money should go instead into providing environmentally clean sources of energy," he said, adding it would be better to spend the funds (about $10 billion) to develop renewable sources of energy. He also queried the safety of the construction project. But former Nuclear Power Minister Viktor Mikhailov said nuclear and especially thermonuclear energy is safer and more environmentally friendly than fossil energy sources, although he said an industrial fusion power reactor will not be built until the 22nd century. The idea of ITER began when the Soviet Union suggested that the four most advanced nuclear powers - the U.S.S.R., the U.S., Europe and Japan - create a "tokamak" reactor, a doughnut-shaped chamber to confine in a magnetic field incandescent plasma that no material can withstand. Thermonuclear fusion of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium then proceeds in the plasma. In mid-June, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded three researchers the prestigious Global Energy prize for their work on an experimental nuclear fusion reactor. Japan's Masaji Yoshikawa, France's Robert Aimar and Russian Academician Yevgeny Velikhov won the prize for developing the scientific and technical foundations for the ITER project. Established in 2002 on Russia's initiative, the international prize has been granted for outstanding theoretical, experimental and applied research, development, inventions and discoveries in the field of energy development and power generation. In 2006, the prize was worth $1.1 million and was shared among the scientists 2005 RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 23 RIA Novosti: Nuclear research facility ready to remove reactor from Moscow 27/ 11/ 2006 MOSCOW, November 27 (RIA Novosti) - Specialists from the Kurchatov nuclear research institute in Moscow are preparing to start removing one of the few remaining research reactors from the capital, the president of the institute said Friday. Russian ecologists have called repeatedly for the withdrawal of all nuclear research reactors from the capital citing threats of radiation and health risks. Moscow is one of the only European capitals to still have operating nuclear reactors on its territory. "We have fully stopped the operation of our largest [40-megawatt F-1 graphite research] reactor," academician Yevgeny Velikhov said. "And we are starting to prepare the first reactor for withdrawal [from Moscow]." The Kurchatov Institute is Russia's leading research and development institution in the field of nuclear energy. It has a total of 7 research reactors located at various facilities in the capital. Five of these are not operational, and two 8-magawatt reactors, which are used as a neutron source for research and to produce radioisotopes for medicine, are still in operation. "We have already sent the first shipment of nuclear fuel to the Urals," he said. "It is a large program and its implementation depends on state financing." The institute is funded through the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology, and federal budget resources represent about 15% of its total financing. The expert said there were no other reasons for the delay in the withdrawal other than the lack of financing. He also said the presence of research reactors in Moscow did not pose a threat to the population. "In 60 years of its [reactor's] operation, we have not changed nuclear fuel even once and have never repaired it [the reactor]," Velikhov said referring to the F-1 graphite reactor at the institute. "Its safe operation is ensured by its design," he said. 2005 RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 24 NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards to Meet December 7-9 in Rockville, Maryland News Release - 2006-14 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 06-145 November 27, 2006 The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) will hold a public meeting Dec. 7-9 in Rockville, Md., to discuss, among other items, two draft final regulatory guides. The guides relate to combined license applications for nuclear power plants and evaluating fatigue analyses for new reactors. The committee will also discuss proposed revisions related to emergency preparedness. The meeting will be held in Room T-2B3 of the agencys Two White Flint North building, at 11545 Rockville Pike. It will begin at 8:30 a.m. each day and end at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and 12:30 p.m. on Saturday. A complete agenda will be available on the NRCs Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/acrs/agenda/2006. Anyone with questions or those wishing to make public statements during the meeting should contact Sam Duraiswamy at 301-415-7364. To pursue videoconferencing services, contact Theron Brown, at 301-415-8066. The ACRS advises the Commission on licensing and operation of nuclear power plants and related safety issues. ----------------------------------------------------------------- NRC news releases are available through a free list serve subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC homepage at www.nrc.gov also offers a SUBSCRIBE link. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web site. Last revised Monday, November 27, 2006 ***************************************************************** 25 The Economist: World is warming to nuclear power WORLDLEDE112806 Home||Business A shift in Australia's stance is a sign of the times: All over the world governments are rethinking the politics and economics of nuclear power. Last update: November 27, 2006 7:51 PM For much of its 26-year life, the Ranger uranium mine in north Australia has seen protests from ecologists who oppose digging for nuclear fuel on the edge of a world heritage park. But by 2008, as the mine's riches run out, Australia may be marching toward a new nuclear era, prompted partly by fear of climate change, the biggest ecological issue of all. A Nov. 21 government report said Australia should do more than sell uranium to other countries: it should use the material to fuel its own nuclear-power industry, and hence curb its greenhouse gas emissions. That's what Prime Minister John Howard wanted to hear. Long a skeptic about global warming, he amazed everyone by saying in May that nuclear power was "inevitable" for Australia. In many parts of the world the mood is shifting in favor of nuclear energy -- often because other responses to climate change seem harder. That in turn is creating new worries over the diversion of nuclear fuel to make bombs and making the distant dream of nuclear fusion even more attractive. Australia has 38 percent of the world's low-cost uranium reserves, but it never has made its own nuclear power. Cheap coal fuels 80 percent of its electricity, gas the rest. But Howard, having dropped his bombshell, ordered a policy review. Its conclusions? Australia could quadruple its 2005 revenue from exporting uranium oxide if it enriched and fabricated the fuel first. It also said Australia should consider operating its first nuclear reactor by 2020, and as many as 25 by 2050. That could supply one-third of the country's electricity and cut greenhouse gases almost one-fifth. With nuclear power now set to dominate next year's general election, the study has given those worried about global warming something to think about: It noted that Australia's uranium exports alone (a record 12,000 tons last year) are enough to supply more than twice its annual electricity needs. New plants on the way Elsewhere in the world, so many nations are either building new plants or thinking about it that energy analysts are speaking of a nuclear renaissance. New reactors are being built in 13 countries. Governments in others, like Britain and the United States, want to make it easier to start new plants. Several European states are slowing plans to phase out nuclear power. Asian countries, with a nuclear appetite that never faded, plan ever more reactors. In most places, the nuclear debate hinges on safety, cost, the environment and security of supply. Atomic energy lost favor after a near-disaster at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979 and a real one at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union (today's Ukraine) in 1986. But engineering firms say their latest designs are safer. Several claim to build "passively safe" plants that need no human or mechanical intervention to shut down after a fault, instead relying on the laws of physics to contain runaway reactions. Regulators are tougher too: Finland has told Areva, a French firm, that the reactor it is building must be able to withstand a crashing plane. Britain plans to encourage new reactors by amending its planning laws. Design will be approved by the national government, leaving local authorities to deal with narrower issues. The U.S. government is offering utilities up to $2 billion in insurance against planning delays. Some ecologists, such as Mike Townsley of Greenpeace, say talk of a renaissance is overdone. If there is a rebirth, it may lie in the mere fact that nuclear power is being discussed, not in any consensus about its merits. Star Tribune. All rights reserved. |||||||||| 425 Portland Av. S., Minneapolis, MN 55488 (612) 673-4000 ***************************************************************** 26 West Australian: Nuclear report may lead to carbon tax 27th November 2006, 12:26 WST Finance Minister Nick Minchin says the government will consider a carbon tax on industry if other countries introduce carbon pricing as part of a global agreement to cut emissions. But the government would not introduce a carbon tax just to make nuclear power more competitive with coal, he said. Stung by polls showing most Australians are dissatisfied with its response to global warming, the government used the resumption of parliament to spruik its greenhouse credentials, following the release of the Switkowski report on nuclear power. The draft report of the government's nuclear task force found nuclear power was not yet viable in Australia but may become feasible if a price was placed on carbon emissions. Senator Minchin said carbon pricing was a separate issue to that of nuclear power in the debate about climate change and Australia's future energy needs. He maintained Australia would not introduce a carbon tax but would consider doing so as part of a multilateral response to climate change. "In no circumstances should it be said or asserted that in order to make nuclear viable this government will therefore move in the direction of some sort of carbon tax or carbon pricing," Senator Minchin told parliament. "We are prepared to contemplate some sort of price signal for carbon if it is part of a global approach, one that will not unfairly disadvantage this country. "Otherwise you simply get the industries that are greenhouse-gas intensive moving to those countries that aren't part of a carbon pricing system. "That would simply disadvantage this country, put people out of work, with no benefit to the globe." AAP thewest.com.au] 'The West Australian' is a trademark of West Australian Newspapers Pty Ltd 2006. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 Deseret News: Motivation about arena is a mystery [deseretnews.com] Monday, November 27, 2006 By Lee Benson Deseret Morning News We've had a week now to get used to the house that Larry H. built changing its name from the Delta Center to the EnergySolutions Arena, but what I still can't figure is why a company that specializes in disposing of low-level nuclear waste would want to put its name on anything in Utah, let alone a basketball arena. I could understand Delta Air Lines, at least before its mounting debt problems, wanting to pay to have its name on what amounts to Utah's biggest billboard, just as I can understand Pepsi wanting to be on the Denver NBA arena and Compaq on the Houston arena and American Airlines on the Dallas arena and Staples wanting to have its name on the building where both the Lakers and the Clippers play. These are businesses that advertise everywhere because people everywhere are potential customers. But why does a garbage dump that caters to a rather specialized and limited clientele feel the need to advertise to the masses? It's not like we can take our old mattresses out there. And why does the Utah Jazz want to name its arena after a garbage dump? Well, other than the million-plus a year the garbage dump is paying for the privilege. So, OK, I sort of get the Jazz's motivation, even though there were reportedly other bidders they could have chosen from. And it does seem a stretch when Larry H. Miller Sports and Entertainment president Dennis Haslam says, "EnergySolutions has the same kinds of ideals that we have." What does that mean? EnergySolutions also pays its employees 1,000 percent above the minimum wage, charges $9 for an order of nachos and a small Coke, and wants desperately to win an NBA title? But the real mystery is EnergySolution's motivation. Why would a company in an industry that traditionally keeps a low profile want such a strong public pronouncement? Especially when it is in that end of the industry that dumps nuclear waste. I personally am a big fan of nuclear energy and recognize the need to judiciously dispose of its waste. And from what I have been told by physicists I think it is completely safe to dump nuclear waste and I have no problem with it being dumped in Utah. In fact, I think the state should get involved in the process and help build a lot of schools and raise teachers' salaries and build gymnasiums as opposed to naming them with the potential profits. But I realize I am in the vast minority when it comes to dumping nuclear waste. Nuclear waste, no matter how low the grade, is about as popular in Utah as Tim Duncan. And now, in a kind of Tim Duncan in-your-face, a company that deals in nuclear waste has partnered with the state's most popular sports team. That just seems weird. There's something odd about a garbage dump paying thousands of dollars a day to have its name in letters dozens of feet high on the side of a basketball arena. I didn't know anybody had that kind of money in waste management other than the Corleone family. And now, the Jazz. 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 28 Sofia Echo: REACTOR CLOSURE IN BULGARIA SHOULD BE RECONSIDERED- NPP DIRECTOR - Business news Mon 27 Nov 2006 The decision for the closure of the third and fourth blocks of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant in the end of 2006 should be re-considered, the power plants managing director Ivan Genov said. To meet EU entry requirements accepted previously, Bulgaria has to shut down the two reactors by the end of the year. This decision could affect electricity prices and the energy stability of the Balkan region. Recently European Parliament members called for flexible approach to the closure. The deadline could be extended by six months for reassessment of the reactors condition. All problems related to the functioning of the reactors have been dealt with, Genov said. These problems featured among the main arguments for the closure in 1998, said he. The reactors were safe and there was no need for them to be shut down, Genov told the Bulgarian National Radio. Foreign Minister Ivaylo Kalfin said that the closure could not be re-negotiated. The shutdown featured among the items in Bulgarias EU entry treaty and a change meant that the ratification of the treaty should start over again, said Kalfin. [Printer friendly version] www.sofiaecho.com ***************************************************************** 29 NRC: Notice of Availability of Model Application on Technical FR Doc E6-19972 [Federal Register: November 27, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 227)] [Notices] [Page 68642-68644] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr27no06-127] Specification Improvement To Modify Requirements Regarding LCO 3.10.1, Inservice Leak and Hydrostatic Testing Operation Using the Consolidated Line Item Improvement Process AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of Availability. SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has prepared a model licensee application relating to the modification of shutdown testing requirements in technical specifications (TS) for Boiling Water Reactors (BWR). The purpose of this model is to permit the NRC to efficiently process amendments that propose to modify LCO 3.10.1, and the associated Bases, to expand its scope to include provisions for temperature excursions greater than [200][deg]F as a consequence of inservice leak and hydrostatic testing, and as a consequence of scram time testing initiated in conjunction with an inservice leak or hydrostatic test, while considering operational conditions to be in Mode 4. Licensees of nuclear power [[Page 68643]] reactors to which the model applies could then request amendments, confirming the applicability to their reactors. DATES: The NRC staff issued a Federal Register Notice on September 25, 2006 (71 FR 55807) that provided a model application relating to modification of requirements regarding LCO 3.10.1, ``Inservice Leak and Hydrostatic Testing Operation.'' The NRC staff hereby announces that the model application may be referenced in plant-specific applications to adopt the changes. The staff will post the model application on the NRC Web site to assist licensees in using the consolidated line item improvement process (CLIIP) to revise the TS on LCO 3.10.1, ``Inservice Leak and Hydrostatic Testing Operation.'' FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Tim Kobetz, Mail Stop: O-12H2, Division of Inspections and Regional Support, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555- 0001, telephone 301-415-1932. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Background Regulatory Issue Summary 2000-06, ``Consolidated Line Item Improvement Process for Adopting Standard Technical Specification Changes for Power Reactors,'' was issued on March 20, 2000. The consolidated line item improvement process (CLIIP) is intended to improve the efficiency of NRC licensing processes by processing proposed changes to the standard technical specifications (STS) in a manner that supports subsequent license amendment applications. The CLIIP includes an opportunity for the public to comment on a proposed change to the STS after a preliminary assessment by the NRC staff and a finding that the change will likely be offered for adoption by licensees. The CLIIP directs the NRC staff to evaluate any comments received for a proposed change to the STS and to either reconsider the change or announce the availability of the change for adoption by licensees. A model safety evaluation and no significant hazards determination regarding the proposed changes to LCO 3.10.1 have been previously posted in the Federal Register for availability on October 27, 2006 (71 FR 63050). This notice makes available a model application that will permit the NRC to efficiently process amendments that propose to modify LCO 3.10.1, and the associated Bases, to expand its scope to include provisions for temperature excursions greater than [200][deg]F as a consequence of inservice leak and hydrostatic testing, and as a consequence of scram time testing initiated in conjunction with an inservice leak or hydrostatic test, while considering operational conditions to be in Mode 4. Applicability Licensees opting to apply for this TS change are responsible for reviewing the staff's evaluation, referencing the applicable technical justifications, and providing any necessary plant-specific information. To efficiently process the incoming license amendment applications, the NRC staff requests that each licensee applying for the changes addressed by TSTF-484, Revision 0, using the CLIIP, submit a license amendment request that adheres to the attached model application. Variations from the model application in this notice may require additional review by NRC staff, and may increase the time and resources needed for review. Significant variations from the model application, or inclusion of additional changes to the license, may result in staff rejection of the submittal. Each amendment application made in response to the notice of availability will be processed and noticed in accordance with applicable rules and NRC procedures. Public Notices In a notice in the Federal Register dated September 25, 2006 (71 FR 55807), the staff requested comment on the use of a model application to process requests to revise the TS regarding LCO 3.10.1, ``Inservice Leak and Hydrostatic Testing Operation.'' No comments have been received. TSTF-484, as well as the NRC staff's safety evaluation and model application, may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records are accessible electronically from the ADAMS Public Library component on the NRC Web site, (the Electronic Reading Room). Model Application for License Amendments Adopting TSTF-484, Rev. 0, ``use of TS 3.10.1 for Scram Time Testing Activities'' U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Document Control Desk, Washington, DC 20555. SUBJECT: [Plant Name] Docket No. 50--License Amendment Request for Adoption of TSTF-484, Rev. 0, ``Use of TS 3.10.1 for Scram Time Testing Activities'' In accordance with the provisions of Section 50.90 of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR 50.90), [LICENSEE] is submitting a request for an amendment to the technical specifications (TS) for [PLANT NAME, UNIT NO.]. The proposed amendment would revise LCO 3.10.1, and the associated Bases, to expand its scope to include provisions for temperature excursions greater than [200][deg]F as a consequence of inservice leak and hydrostatic testing, and as a consequence of scram time testing initiated in conjunction with an inservice leak or hydrostatic test, while considering operational conditions to be in Mode 4. This change is consistent with NRC approved Revision 0 to Technical Specification Task Force (TSTF) Improved Standard Technical Specification Change Traveler, TSTF-484, ``Use of TS 3.10.1 for Scram Time Testing Activities.'' The availability of the TS 3.10.1 revision was announced in the Federal Register on October 27, 2006 (71 FR 63050) as part of the consolidated line item improvement process (CLIIP). Attachment 1 provides an evaluation of the proposed change. Attachment 2 provides the existing TS pages marked up to show the proposed change. Attachment 3 provides the proposed TS changes in final typed format. Attachment 4 provides the existing Bases pages marked up to show the proposed change. [LICENSEE] requests approval of the proposed license amendment by [DATE], with the amendment being implemented [BY DATE OR WITHIN X DAYS]. In accordance with 10 CFR 50.91, a copy of this application, with attachments, is being provided to the designated [STATE] Official. If you should have any questions regarding this submittal, please contact [ ]. I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that I am authorized by [LICENSEE] to make this request and that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on [DATE]. [NAME, TITLE] Attachments: 1. Evaluation of Proposed Change; 2. Proposed Technical Specification Change (Mark-Up); 3. Proposed Technical Specification Change (Re-Typed); 4. Proposed Technical Specification Bases Change (Mark-Up). cc: [NRR Project Manager] [Regional Office] [Resident Inspector] [State Contact] [[Page 68644]] Attachment 1--Evaluation of Proposed Change License Amendment Request for Adoption of TSTF-484, Rev. 0, ``Use of TS 3.10.1 for Scram Time Testing Activities'' 1.0 Description 2.0 Proposed Change 3.0 Background 4.0 Technical Analysis 5.0 Regulatory Safety Analysis 5.1 No Significant Hazards Determination 5.2 Applicable Regulatory Requirements/Criteria 6.0 Environmental Consideration 7.0 References 1.0 Description The proposed amendment would revise LCO 3.10.1, and the associated Bases, to expand its scope to include provisions for temperature excursions greater than [200][deg]F as a consequence of inservice leak and hydrostatic testing, and as a consequence of scram time testing initiated in conjunction with an inservice leak or hydrostatic test, while considering operational conditions to be in Mode 4. This change is consistent with NRC approved Revision 0 to Technical Specification Task Force (TSTF) Improved Standard Technical Specification Change Traveler, TSTF-484, ``Use of TS 3.10.1 for Scram Time Testing Activities.'' The availability of the TS 3.10.1 revision was announced in the Federal Register on October 27, 2006 (71 FR 63050) as part of the consolidated line item improvement process (CLIIP). 2.0 Proposed Change Consistent with the NRC approved Revision 0 of TSTF-484, the proposed TS changes include a revised TS 3.10.1, ``Inservice Leak and Hydrostatic Testing Operation.'' Proposed revisions to the TS Bases are also included in this application. Adoption of the TS Bases associated with TSTF-484, Revision 0 is an integral part of implementing this TS amendment. The changes to the affected TS Bases pages will be incorporated in accordance with the TS Bases Control Program. This application is being made in accordance with the CLIIP. [LICENSEE] is [not] proposing variations or deviations from the TS changes described in TSTF-484, Revision 0, or the NRC staff's model safety evaluation (SE) published on October 27, 2006 (71 FR 63050) as part of the CLIIP Notice of Availability. [Discuss any deviations] 3.0 Background The background for this application is adequately addressed by the NRC Notice of Availability published on October 27, 2006 (71 FR 63050). 4.0 Technical Analysis [LICENSEE] has reviewed the safety evaluation (SE) published on October 27, 2006 (71 FR 63050) as part of the CLIIP Notice of Availability. [LICENSEE] has concluded that the technical justifications presented in the SE prepared by the NRC staff are applicable to [PLANT, UNIT NO.] and therefore justify this amendment for the incorporation of the proposed changes to the [PLANT] TS. 5.0 Regulatory Safety Analysis 5.1 No Significant Hazards Determination [LICENSEE] has reviewed the no significant hazards determination published on August 21, 2006 (71 FR 48561) as part of the CLIIP Notice for Comment. The no significant hazards determination was made available on October 27, 2006 (71 FR 63050) as part of the CLIIP Notice of Availability. [LICENSEE] has concluded that the determination presented in the notice is applicable to [PLANT, UNIT NO.] and the determination is hereby incorporated by reference to satisfy the requirements of 10 CFR 50.91(a). 5.2 Applicable Regulatory Requirements / Criteria A description of the proposed TS change and its relationship to applicable regulatory requirements was provided in the NRC Notice of Availability published on October 27, 2006 (71 FR 63050). 6.0 Environmental Consideration [LICENSEE] has reviewed the environmental evaluation included in the safety evaluation (SE) published on October 27, 2006 (71 FR 63050) as part of the CLIIP Notice of Availability. [LICENSEE] has concluded that the staff's findings presented in that evaluation are applicable to [PLANT, NO.] and the evaluation is hereby incorporated by reference for this application. 7.0 References 1. Federal Register Notice, Notice of Availability published on October 27, 2006 (71 FR 63050). 2. Federal Register Notice, Notice for Comment published on August 21, 2006 (71 FR 48561) 3. TSTF-484 Revision 0, ``Use of TS 3.10.1 for Scram Times Testing Activities'' Attachment 2 Proposed Technical Specification Change (Mark-Up) Attachment 3 Proposed Technical Specification Change (Re-Typed) Attachment 4 Proposed Technical Specification Bases Change (Mark-Up) Principal Contributor: Aron Lewin. Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 20th of November 2006. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Timothy Kobetz, Chief, Technical Specifications Branch, Division of Inspections and Regional Support, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. E6-19972 Filed 11-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 30 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for the FR Doc E6-19973 [Federal Register: November 27, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 227)] [Notices] [Page 68641-68642] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr27no06-125] Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Review; Comment Request AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice of the OMB review of information collection and solicitation of public comment. SUMMARY: The NRC has recently submitted to OMB for review the following proposal for the collection of information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. 1. Type of submission, new, revision, or extension: Revision. 2. The title of the information collection: NRC Form 171, ``Duplication Request.'' 3. The form number if applicable: NRC 171. [[Page 68642]] 4. How often the collection is required: On occasion. 5. Who will be required or asked to report: Individuals or companies requesting document duplication. 6. An estimate of the number of annual responses: 7,940 responses. 7. The estimated number of annual respondents: 7,940. 8. An estimate of the total number of hours needed annually to complete the requirement or request: 990 hours (about 8 minutes per respondent). 9. An indication of whether Section 3507(d), Public Law 104-13 applies: N/A. 10. Abstract: This form is utilized by individual members of the public requesting reproduction of publicly available documents in NRC Headquarters' Public Document Room. Copies of the form are utilized by the reproduction contractor to accompany the orders and are then discarded. A copy of the final supporting statement may be viewed free of charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB clearance requests are available at the NRC worldwide Web site: . The document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days after the signature date of this notice. Comments and questions should be directed to the OMB reviewer listed below by December 27, 2006. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but assurance of consideration cannot be given to comments received after this date. Sarah P. Garman, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (3150-0066), NEOB-10202, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC 20503. Comments can also be e-mailed to or submitted by telephone at (202) 395-4650. The NRC Clearance Officer is Brenda Jo. Shelton, 301-415-7233. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 20th day of November 2006. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of Information Services. [FR Doc. E6-19973 Filed 11-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 31 MSNBC.com: Nuclear plant info available to public - Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit - NBC News investigation finds sensitive documents in libraries By Lisa Myers, Amna Nawaz & the NBC Investigative UnitNBC News WASHINGTON - What if an airplane were to crash into a nuclear plant? How long would it take terrorists to penetrate security barriers outside nuclear facilities? What are the most vulnerable parts of a nuclear plant to attack in order to inflict maximum damage? The answers to all those questions, and many more, are available to the public, as NBC News discovered in a recent hidden-camera investigation. Accessing that very information - along with thousands of other sensitive documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) - is as easy as walking into a public library, finding the right files, printing them out and walking out with the documents in hand, no questions asked. Many of the documents we were able to access were among the thousands of files the NRC pulled from its Web site after 9/11, deemed too sensitive to be available to the public. But that same effort to clean out sensitive information, it seems, was never made with NRC's document collections in public libraries across the country. Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, who also served as co-chairman of the 9/11 commission, calls this inconsistency "appalling." "What this means is that we've given the terrorists an easy map in order to find out about our nuclear facilities," says Kean. "It's the worst possible thing we could be doing." E-mails and letters obtained by NBC News show that after 9/11, the NRC did, in fact, compile a list of sensitive documents to be pulled from public collections. But in early 2002, the agency made the decision not to pull the information, so the request, and that list, were never passed on to libraries. The documents were never removed. In fact, we were able to obtain documents from that very list at all four libraries we visited, and federal investigators were able to find sensitive security documents at all 25 libraries they visited. For security reasons, NBC News is not revealing the location of the libraries or the exact content of the documents. In a statement to NBC News, the NRC says it is aware of a "limited amount" of sensitive information that continues to exist in the public domain, but that "the usefulness of this information is minimal given its age and subsequent changes to and improvements in security programs and physical modifications that have been made to nuclear facilities" since 9/11. The agency wishes "to assure the public that information directly related to the security programs and protection of nuclear power plants is not in the public domain." But Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, insists the information in the public collections is "very explicit, very detailed, and would be very useful to the terrorists planning out such an attack." Lochbaum was recently able to buy an entire set of NRC's document collection from a public library. "Many of those records were pulled by the NRC from the main collection because of their value to terrorists," says Lochbaum. "Yet here they were in the collection we obtained." Among the files he found in his new collection: the same documents the NRC removed from its Web site, including a 1982 report that details the catastrophic impact a plane crash could have if it hit at just the right point at a nuclear plant. "That document, in pretty explicit detail, explains what the vulnerable parts of a plant are in terms of aircraft impact, so that would then become the targets for the pilot or the terrorist at the controls of an aircraft," says Lochbaum. "That's what he'd aim for." A prominent congressman agrees. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., the ranking member of the House Committee on Science, recently wrote a letter to the NRC that describes the availability of all the sensitive nuclear data as "particularly troubling." Gordon writes, "It is baffling to me that the NRC would consider this information so sensitive that it should be pulled from its on-line database, yet apparently the information was considered safe enough to be left in more than 80 public libraries scattered throughout the nation." Gordon continues: "In my mind, the information can't be both a security threat and, simultaneously, of no consequence; a policy that treats the same materials in two different ways is simply muddled." The NRC also claims that the limited accessibility of the documents was part of its decision to leave the information in the public realm. But Kean believes a difficult process is not necessarily sufficient deterrent to anyone determined to carry out a terror attack. "What we learned in the 9/11 investigation was that these terrorists are smart, they're determined, they're willing to work as hard as necessary, they do their research, and they practice," says Kean. "These are people who prepare very, very, very carefully. And so, if it's available and there's a way they can get it, they will." 2006 MSNBC Interactive ***************************************************************** 32 Prague Daily Monitor: Two solar power plants to be built near Temelin nuke -- TV Prima - Prague, Nov 26 (CTK) - Two photovoltaic power plants will be built in southern Bohemia near the Temelin nuclear power plant, TV Prima said on Saturday adding that the investors are now waiting for subsidies without which they could not carry out the projects. Each plant will cost CZK 30 million and construction could begin next year, TV Prima said. TV Prima did not specify the plants' capacity. The investment is expected to return in 20 years. The Czech Republic still lags behind Germany and other western European countries in the amount of solar-generated electricity. The combined capacity of all Czech solar power plants is just one megawatt compared to 800 MW in Germany two years ago. Most recently a photovoltaic power plant has been opened in Hradek nad Nisou, northern Bohemia. Other solar power plants are operated by universities in Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Liberec and Plzen, for example. joz/er This story copyright 2006 CTK Czech News Agency. The and are not responsible for its content. ***************************************************************** 33 Boston Globe: New England's potential as an energy giant - By Richard K. Lester | November 27, 2006 DIRTY, vulnerable, and underinvested? Or clean, clever, and competitive? That, says the International Energy Agency in its latest "World Energy Outlook" report, is the choice the world faces as it struggles toward a sustainable energy future. It is also the choice facing this region. The bad news is that our aging electric and gas infrastructure will soon be inadequate to meet growing demand. The good news is that the region is well positioned to emerge as a major global energy center -- the Qatar, if not the Saudi Arabia, of the 21st-century energy industry. How can New England, with virtually no energy resources, become a global energy capital? Surprisingly, this is a real possibility, because the most important resource in tomorrow's energy industry will be human brainpower. Already, local firms and universities are mobilizing to meet the need. But a serious regional development strategy is lacking. To ensure the supply of clean, affordable, reliable energy, three problems will have to be tackled. First, world energy demand will likely double by 2050 . Second, the world's dependence on the politically unstable Middle East for oil and gas will persist for decades. And third, to have any chance of avoiding global climate change, the world must make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels by mid-century. The best hope for navigating safely through these problems is innovation . New technologies for storing energy efficiently; new strategies for minimizing environmental damage ; new services to help businesses and homeowners manage their energy use ; new regulatory approaches to encourage adoption of carbon-free energy sources; new competitive business models to replace traditional energy monopolies; new technologies to lower the cost of renewable and nuclear electricity -- all this, and more, will be needed. Our region is emerging as a center of innovation in many of these fields. Scores of local businesses are developing and marketing an array of innovative energy technologies and services, including advanced fuel cells, ultra-lightweight insulators, photovoltaic systems, biofuels, and energy management services. Multinational energy corporations are relocating their research labs to the area. And local universities are gearing up. At MIT -- where President Susan Hockfield recently announced a major new energy initiative -- the campus is buzzing with engineering and entrepreneurial activity, much of it led by students eager to change the world. If the region does indeed become a global capital of energy entrepreneurship, it will partly be because of the same assets that drove the development of our biomedical and information technology industries -- the large and vibrant university sector and the deep pool of risk capital. But some of those achievements were short-lived -- the loss of computer industry leadership to Silicon Valley is now old news -- and even the continued growth of the region's lively biotech sector is not assured. Other regions are seeking to build tomorrow's technology-based industries. For New England to become a preferred location for the new energy industry, we need to bridge the fault lines that intersect our famously non collaborative region. For example: Old-line energy utilities and entrepreneurial tech-based energy firms, traditionally suspicious of each other, should work together more closely, especially on innovations to reduce energy use. Public and private universities should combine forces on new multidisciplinary energy research programs . Greater Boston has universities and entrepreneurial resources, but also high costs and limited space. Other parts of the region have more space and lower costs. Collaboration on transportation can help ensure that manufacturing of locally developed technology is "homeshored," not offshored. State government has an important role here, and more development funds will be needed. But we cannot afford a public-subsidy "arms race" with other regions. Nor is this necessary. Governments around the world are pouring money into new energy technology programs. The opportunities for the area's energy firms will be legion, and the state should support joint marketing efforts to identify promising targets worldwide. The most important role for state leadership will be to reverse our image as a business-unfriendly location. Even clean energy industries need development. And prompt, predictable, sensible regulation will be crucial to our emergence as a global energy leader. Richard K. Lester is director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center and a professor of nuclear science and engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [ /] Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company. More: ***************************************************************** 34 Hemscott: EDF considers nuclear projects in UK LONDON (AFX) - EDF Energy PLC, owned by France's EDF SA, is considering plans to invest in nuclear energy projects in the UK, said chief executive Vincent de Rivaz. EDF Energy currently generates electricity in Britain mainly using gas and coal. It supplies over 5 mln customers in the south of England, including London. De Rivaz said at today's annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry that the company has formed a team which will study possible investments in nuclear energy in the UK. The plan not only hopes to address the issue concerning energy security in the country, but also seeks to help reduce carbon emissions, he added, stressing that Britain can no longer rely on gas as supply of the resource has been rapidly dwindling. The EDF Group has about 58 existing nuclear reactors in 19 sites in France with a capacity of over 63 gigawatts. This has made France the second biggest generator of nuclear power, behind the US, the group has claimed. monicca.egoy@afxnews.com mbe/slm Copyright AFX News Limited 2006. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 35 Telegraph: Heritage plan for nuclear power stations [telegraph.co.uk] By Charles Clover, Environment Editor Last Updated: 1:45am GMT 28/11/2006 Nuclear power stations could be given the same degree of protection as castles and archaeological sites under plans being drawn up by heritage bodies. The plans have been prompted by the closure of Britain's first generation of civil nuclear sites, which were built or planned in the first decade after the Second World War and are now facing demolition. [Calder Hall] Calder Hall was the worlds first commercial reactor. Britains first generation of civil nuclear sites could be scheduled It is envisaged that scheduling  and not listing  would be the best way of preserving structures such as the distinctive sphere of the fast breeder reactor at Dounreay, Caithness, and the turbine hall and control room of Calder Hall power station, Sellafield, the world's first commercial reactor. The whole exercise is likely to be controversial because nuclear power stations were, in their day, the subject of fierce planning battles and considered blots on the landscape. Roger Bowdler, the head of designations at English Heritage, said: "These are extremely early stages, though, and we intend to tread immensely cautiously. Some of the enormous buildings have a brooding presence that is extremely strong meat and the jury is out on their claims for architectural remembrance. "A schedule means it has got to go on being like it is. There might be a way of doing it in a discretionary way which gives you all you need." Both English Heritage and Historic Scotland have had to react to demolition plans drawn up by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns the power station sites, and by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UK AEA), which is responsible for most of the pioneering nuclear facilities. Mr Bowdler said UK AEA had already embarked on a process of recording the history of civil nuclear power. "For the most part their interest coincides with our interest which is to ensure that a good record is kept to see that what they were doing is understood and that the excitement of the time is captured." The controversy began when the cooling towers at Calder Hall were proposed for listing to the Department of Culture. This was refused because the design of cooling towers was standard for all power stations and harks back to the 1930s. A spokesman for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said: "There has been no formal consultation on this yet though clearly we do realise that some of these buildings do have iconic status." At Dounreay, UK AEA is already looking to preserve the distinctive sphere of the fast-breeder reactor, even though it costs 150,000 to repaint the structure every two years. Environmentalists are not opposed to protecting nuclear sites. Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said: "We need to be reminded of the huge amounts of money they wasted and the radioactive legacy they left us." Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2006. ***************************************************************** 36 EurekAlert: AECL signs agreement with Argentina on expanded CANDU program 27-Nov-2006 Contact: Ghyslain Charron 613-992-4447 OTTAWA The Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources, announced today that AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.) has signed an agreement with Nucleoelctrica Argentina S.A. that will advance co-operation in Canadian-developed CANDU nuclear power. The agreement covers the refurbishment of Argentinas first CANDU power station and includes a feasibility study for another 700-megawatt CANDU 6 power station. AECLs CANDU 6 power reactor is a leading performer in five nations, said Minister Lunn. As an international leader in clean nuclear power, Canada is working with Argentina to strengthen our successful CANDU programs as the nuclear renaissance continues. AECLs agreement with Argentina sets out the framework for a program that will greatly enhance peaceful nuclear energy co-operation, with resulting commercial opportunities for both countries, said AECL President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Van Adel. This is a very positive development for AECL and the Canadian nuclear industry. The signing between representatives of AECL and Nucleoelctrica S.A., an Argentinian government-owned company operating nuclear stations, was witnessed by the Minister of Planning and Federal Investment in Argentina, Julio De Vido. It reflects the importance both governments place on using world-leading CANDU power plants to meet increasing energy demands. Argentinas nuclear power program is centred on heavy water reactors, including the very successful Embalse, an AECL CANDU 6 power reactor that was connected to the grid in 1983. The agreement specifies a number of nuclear-related projects for joint co-operation. These include the refurbishment of Embalse, a feasibility study for the next CANDU station to go into service around 2015 and assistance to Nucleoelctrica Argentina S.A. to help complete a reactor originally supplied by Germany. The agreement will also create commercial opportunities for Argentina to supply services and heavy water to international CANDU markets. ### About AECL AECL is a full-service nuclear-technology company providing services to nuclear utilities around the world. Established in 1952, AECL is the designer and builder of CANDU technology. AECL specializes in a range of advanced nuclear-energy products and services that are an important component of clean-air energy programs on four continents. AECLs 4,000 employees provide research and development, support, design and engineering, construction management, specialized technology, refurbishment, waste management and decommissioning in support of CANDU reactor products. More information on AECL and CANDU technology can be found at . FOR BROADCAST USE: Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. has signed an agreement with Nucleoelctrica Argentina S.A. to advance co-operation in Canadian-developed CANDU nuclear power. The agreement reflects the importance that the governments of Canada and Argentina place on using CANDU power plants to meet increasing energy demands. ***************************************************************** 37 AU ABC: Qld to ban nuclear power plants. 27/11/2006. ABC News Online The Queensland Government will introduce legislation into Parliament this week to prohibit the building of nuclear power facilities in Queensland. Premier Peter Beattie says the move is in reaction to a report released last week that suggests there could be 25 nuclear reactors across Australia within 50 years. Mr Beattie admits the Federal Government could override the state legislation but he says it would be a test of political will. "If the Federal Government wants to build nuclear reactors in this state or have dumping of nuclear material here, they will have to overrule this legislation" he said. "They have the power to do so but we're not going to make it easy for them. "They will have to overrule it." ***************************************************************** 38 The Australian: Beattie will ban nuclear facilities + NEWS.com.au | Tony Koch November 28, 2006 LEGISLATION will be introduced in the Queensland parliament prohibiting the building of nuclear power plants, despite Peter Beattie acknowledging the federal Government has powers to override such laws. The Premier said yesterday the legislation would be presented to parliament this week banning nuclear facilities, including uranium enrichment plants, nuclear power stations and waste sites. "Under the Howard Government, Queensland communities face the very real threat of becoming home to nuclear reactors and a dumping ground for dangerous nuclear waste," Mr Beattie said. "They have given no consideration to the impact of this decision on Queensland's multi-billion-dollar coal and mineral industry - the backbone of our state's booming economy." Mr Beattie said the legislation would provide for a future plebiscite on nuclear issues. "The Howard Government wants to push ahead with this proposal regardless, but we want to make sure Queenslanders have a chance to have their say," he said. Mr Beattie said that if the federal Government adopted a policy supporting nuclear generation, uranium enrichment or dumping facilities, a plebiscite would be put to Queenslanders seeking a vote on whether they supported such facilities. "At least Queenslanders would be given the chance to be heard." Treasurer Anna Bligh said the negative impact of nuclear power on the nation's coal industry and economy had to be taken into account. "A recent independent study we commissioned shows a nuclear power station would use 25 per cent more water than a coal-fired power station," she said. "That is not a smart option when we are experiencing the worst drought on record." Privacy Terms The Australian ***************************************************************** 39 AU ABC: Carbon pricings not related to nuclear power: Minchin. 27/11/2006. ABC News Online Federal Finance Minister Nick Minchin says the issue of carbon pricing is completely separate to whether nuclear power is a viable energy source for Australia. A Government inquiry has found nuclear energy does not make economic sense unless a price is put on carbon emissions. The report by Ziggy Switkowski indicates Australia could build 25 nuclear power stations by the year 2050. But Senator Minchin says it does not mean the Government will tax carbon in order to make nuclear energy affordable. "Australia needs to address the first question of whether or not some sort of carbon pricing should be part of our response to global climate change," he said. "There is a separate question as to whether nuclear power should be part of the energy mix of Australia." ***************************************************************** 40 TPR: U.S. To Ship Tons of Uranium Across Globe for Nuke Energy Production THE PEACOCK REPORT ( November 24, 2006 U.S. To Ship Tons of Uranium Across Globe for Nuke Energy Production [Cooling_towerpop] Over 17 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) are slated for transfer into the hands of private contractors, whom under the auspices of the U.S. Dept. of Energy program will "down-blend" the weapons-grade material into nuclear reactor-friendly low-enriched uranium (LEU) -- which would then be shipped to foreign nations. The purported goal of the project is to dissuade other countries from pursuing uranium enrichment weapons-development programs, a measure which the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) hopes to accomplish by providing those nations with the products necessary to move forward with nuclear energy initiatives. The Reliable Fuel Supply program seeks to "ensure reliable access to nuclear fuel feedstock for power reactors in foreign countries...," according to a planning documentthat TPR located through a routine search of the FedBizOpps database. The Nov. 8 document further notes that "This material will provide a significant reserve that will increase the confidence of countries voluntarily choosing not to pursue enrichment and reprocessing that they will not risk losing the benefits of nuclear power." The selected contractor will convert 17.5 MT of the highly enriched uranium into 40 MT of the low-enriched uranium, it said. NNSA's Office of Fissile Materials Disposition will oversee the activities of the vendor, who likewise will be responsible for transporting "a substantial majority" of the resulting low enriched uranium to an unnamed, designated storage facility. NNSA did not specify what percentage of this "substantial majority" of LEU would be shipped internationally. Similarly, it vaguely noted that "much" of this reprocessed uranium would be given to the contractor as compensation for its efforts, in addition to the execution of a "property loan agreement" to conduct the operation. The agency plans to release a formal Request for Proposals for this endeavor sometime in late December or early January. It also said it expects to award a five-year contract by April or May 2007. November 24, 2006 | Permalink ***************************************************************** 41 Judicial Watch: Whistle Blowers Recover Billions For Taxpayers www.judicialwatch.org November 27, 2006 Private contractors annually defraud the federal government out of billions of dollars and whistleblowers are the key to recovering much of the money with a record $3.1 billion reclaimed from corrupt businesses last year alone. Most of the money was recovered from hospitals or other health care providers that fraudulently over billed the government. In fact, the biggest settlement ($920 million) came against the nation’s second-largest hospital chain, Tenet, for over billing the government for $806 million in Medicare payments and paying $49 million in kickbacks to doctors who referredpatients to the chain. Other high profile whistleblower cases include aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. for improperly carrying out contracts with the Pentagon and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Halliburton’s millions of dollars in fake “war risk surcharges” in Iraq reconstruction contracts. Thanks to a pair of whistle blowers the giant Houston-based oil services conglomerate paid the government $4 million to settle that particular incident. Whistle blowers have helped the government recover about $18 billion in the twenty years since lawmakers created legislation to protect them from retaliation for reporting fraud and corruption. A 1986 amendment to the False Claims Actprovides extra protections for those employees who are discriminated against for participation or involvement in reporting official wrongdoing. The employee cannot be discharged, demoted, suspended, threatened, harassed, or in any other manner discriminated against. This has motivated government employees at the city, county, state and federal levels to come forth with less fear. Until this year, the government had never recovered more than $2 billion in fraud cases. The False Claims Act has been around since 1863 but without the added 1986 whistleblower protection, retaliation was commonplace and employees were scared. Posted by at November 27, 2006 11:59 AM ***************************************************************** 42 The Australian: Nuclear ban like 'book-burning' + November 28, 2006 This story is from our news.com.aunetwork Source: AAP A MOVE by the Queensland Government to ban nuclear facilities was "like medieval book-burning", the nuclear industry said today. The Government will introduce laws to Parliament this week to ban nuclear facilities in Queensland in a bid to head off any move by the federal Government. Former Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski released a landmark report last week on the possible future of the nuclear energy industry in Australia, concluding 25 nuclear reactors could produce a third of the country's electricity by 2050. Six regional Queensland locations have been mentioned as possible sites for reactors. The Queensland laws will ban uranium enrichment plants, nuclear power stations and nuclear waste sites, and give Queenslanders a vote on a nuclear industry if the federal Government goes ahead with legislation. Ian Hore-Lacy of the Australian Uranium Association, said the state legislation was a populist decision by Premier Peter Beattie. "The reaction sounds a bit like medieval book-burning," Mr Hore-Lacy said. "If a federal government in the next couple of years does bring in effective policies to put a cost on carbon emissions, Queensland will have a serious dilemma, having been shot in the foot by a populist premier. "They would possibly find that coal then became rather more expensive than nuclear." But he said he did not believe the federal Government would override the laws. Privacy Terms The Australian ***************************************************************** 43 [NukeNet] CNN News:Spy death: 5 have radiation tests Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:05:16 -0800 X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61] X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61 X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) CNN News Spy death: 5 have radiation tests Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/27/uk.spy/index.html _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://mail.energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 44 [NYTr] "I met poisoned ex-spy Litvinenko in Israel" Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:56:08 -0500 (EST) X-Sender-Host-Name: olm.blythe-systems.com X-DSPAM-Result: mail; result="Innocent"; class="Whitelisted"; probability=0.0000; confidence=1.00; signature=N/A X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Michael Givel (activ-l) - Nov 27, 2006 Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/792436.html Russian-born businessman: I met poisoned ex-spy Litvinenko in Israel by Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent, and Agencies Russian-born businessman Leonid Nevzlin, former CEO of the Yukos oil company and current chairman of the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, said Friday that he had met in Israel with former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died Thursday in London from poisoning. During the meeting, Litvinenko allegedly passed Nevzlin documents containing classified information possibly damaging to the current leadership in Russia. In Nevzlin's estimation, Litvinenko's murder was tied to the information relating to Yukos contained in the documents. Nevzlin has turned the documents over to the London Metropolitan Police, who are investigating the murder. British police announced Friday that traces of a radioactive substance, Polonium 210, were found in Litvinenko's urine. Polonium 210 is known to be highly lethal and very difficult to detect. Litvinenko served until 1998 as a colonel in the Federal Security Services of Russia as part of a special unit that carried out investigations and special operations against businessmen. A few months before his murder, Litvinenko arrived in Israel in order to pass the documents to Nevzelin. The Government of Russia has issued an arrest warrant for Nevzlin, arguing that he is wanted for tax evasion, budget irregularities, and for connection to the murder of the mayor a Siberian town where Yukos was operating. It appears at this time that Litvinenko was murdered because of his association with Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist who was shot to death in her apartment on October 7. Politkovskaya had also been a harsh critic of Putin's Nevzlin and his business partner Michael Hodrokovsky, who is incarcerated in a Russian prison, were formerly large shareholders in Yukos, once one of the largest holding companies in Russia, as well as one of the largest oil companies in the world. After the struggle of the company's owners against Putin's administration, and their support of opposition parties hostile to the Russian president, the government opened a series of investigations against the company, eventually resulting in the company's bankruptcy, and the imprisonment of Hodrokovsky and Platon Levedev, an additional business partner in Yukos. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 45 [du-list] Further evidence of enriched uranium in the air in Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:11:11 -0800 X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61] X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61 X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST FURTHER EVIDENCE OF ENRICHED URANIUM IN THE AIR IN LEBANON FOLLOWING THE RECENT CONFLICT See http://www.llrc.org for outline, full report and pictures. Part of the message of this report is that citizen groups can use simple, affordable and reliable techniques to monitor for the presence of hot radioactive particles in the environment. Green Audit recently reported the results of measurements carried out on samples from a bomb crater in Khiam Southern Lebanon. Measurements made by the Harwell laboratory in Oxford confirmed the existence of Enriched Uranium of activity 180Bq/kg and U238/U235 ratio of 108 in the sample. The discovery, which was reported in 'The Independent' of 28th October, has caused some concern. The United Nations Environment Programme UNEP responded that its analyses have failed to detect Uranium. The Israel Defence Force has denied using Depleted Uranium weapons. Further evidence of the widespread existence of enriched uranium in Lebanon is now reported in a new paper by Chris Busby and Dai Williams which has been accepted by the European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics and is available on the LLRC website www.llrc.org. Since the first analysis of the Khiam sample (which used Mass Spectrometry) was reported, Green Audit commissioned a second analysis using different techniques. Alpha spectrometry carried out at the School of Ocean Sciences University of Wales has confirmed the presence of Enriched Uranium but also shown the absence of significant amounts of plutonium. In addition, gamma spectroscopy has shown that there is no Caesium-137 or other gamma emitting isotopes that would be expected if the sample originated in spent nuclear fuel. There are significant and justified health concerns about exposure to the long lived and widely dispersed oxide particles formed when uranium weapons are used. In order to examine whether the Khiam bomb was a local contamination affair or whether there is more widespread distribution of uranium, Green Audit has commissioned an analysis for Uranium isotopes of a vehicle air filter taken by Dai Williams from an ambulance in the suburb of Haret Hreyk in South Beirut. The ambulance was hit on day 16 of the war but was active until then. The filter was examined using CR39 alpha tracking plastic and also sent to the Harwell laboratory for an analysis of uranium isotopes and also a routine 45 element analysis. The filter was dissolved in acid and examined using ICP Mass Spectrometry by the Harwell laboratory. Results confirmed the presence of enriched uranium. In three separate measurements the isotopic ratios U238/U235 found were 113, 123, 133 and total concentration in the filter element as supplied was 0.1mg/kg. The lower limit of detection of the Harwell measurement system was 0.0002mg/kg U238 and 0.0001mg/kg U235. This concentration is significant given that the dust in the filter would have had only two weeks to accumulate and add to earlier dust from a year's usage in the engine. In addition, CR39 tracking techniques suggested the presence of at least two hot particles in the filter, the size and activity characteristics of which are consistent with Uranium. Although care should be taken in over-interpreting data based on only one filter, these results do suggest that there was widespread dispersion of enriched uranium over Southern Lebanon. We suggest that further vehicle filter measurements are made as a matter of urgency and that since there are political aspects, the issue is examined by or overseen by independent experts. We repeat here our earlier warning that the detection of weapons uranium in the environment is not straightforward and that conventional Geiger counters cannot be used. CR39 or sensitive beta scintillation counters followed by sampling and ICPMS is necessary before statements can be made about the presence or absence of uranium particles. 'Further evidence of enriched uranium in guided weapons employed by the Israeli military in Lebanon in July 2006; Ambulance filter analysis' Dai Williams and Chris Busby. European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics 2006 Vol 2 Issue 1. Published on the website www.llrc.org with permission of the Journal. Notes: The earlier Green Audit report on bomb crater samples is at http://www.llrc.org/du/subtopic/lebanrept.pdf Independent report at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1935945.ece ICP-MS is "Inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy". European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics: see http://www.ebab.eu.com Critics of Green Audit and LLRC have referred to the Human Rights Council report "Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon" (http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/CoI-Lebanon.pdf), claiming that it indicates depleted Uranium was not used in Lebanon. The relevant paragraph appears to be: ii. Depleted uranium 257. The IDF has within its arsenal of weapons munitions that can be equipped with depleted uranium warheads. It is therefore possible that depleted uranium (DU) munitions were used by the IDF during the conflict. However, the preliminary findings of the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research, which carried out a detailed field survey of several bomb sites, concluded that there was no indication of depleted uranium having been used in the conflict, with the caveat that some additional field work was still necessary to draw a final conclusion. We note that we have already suggested enriched Uranium was deployed in order to disguise the depleted Uranium signature; that since no monitoring methods have been specified either by UNEP or OHCHR no-one can be confident that the forms of Uranium produced by Uranium bombs or armour piercing rounds would be detected; and that the findings are provisional. We have sent you this email circular because you are on our database of people who are concerned about low level radiation and health. If you do not want to receive information from us please reply, putting "remove from LLRC" in the subject line. Low Level Radiation Campaign bramhall@llrc.org Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Members | Calendar To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ed397.jpg Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Visit Your Group SPONSORED LINKS * California energy * Science lab equipment * Increase energy level * Life science research * Life sciences Yahoo! News Top Stories Get the current top news stories Ads on Yahoo! Learn more now. Reach customers searching for you. Biz Resources Y! Small Business Articles, tools, forms, and more. . ed3ae.jpg __,_._,___ Attachment Converted: ed397.jpg: 00000001,539512e1,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: ed3ae.jpg: 00000001,539512e2,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 46 [du-list] Plain old, contaminated uranium metallurgical stock Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:10:30 -0800 X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61] X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61 X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST There is no need to ponder deep or explanations or seek some mysterious meaning in the enriched uranium findings in Lebanon. The UF6, EUF6 and DUF6 canisters used to transport feed to the metallurgical facilities are contaminated (and interchangable). The "heels" (the dregs left over in the cans) contain a range of actinides and transuranic, neutron activation products along with a stew of daughter products. Each canister has on average over 200 pounds of dirty heels. Trace amounts of EU are no more surprising then traces of Pu from the Balkans or 236 U from virtually everywhere. The traces of other nuclides do not change the physics, chemistry or terminal ballistics of the weapons. Density (momentum and inertia), adiabatic shear banding (self sharpening), pyrogenics (autoigniting, gas cloud explosions), and super-thermite effects (volatile intermetallics) are uranium metals properties ... whether the fraction of 235U is above or below natural abundance. __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Members | Calendar To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. e310f.jpg Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Visit Your Group SPONSORED LINKS * California energy * Science lab equipment * Increase energy level * Life science research * Life sciences Yahoo! News World News Get the latest world news now New business? Get new customers. List your web site in Yahoo! Search. Sell Online Start selling with our award-winning e-commerce tools. . e3123.jpg __,_._,___ Attachment Converted: e310f.jpg: 00000001,64e04acd,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: e3123.jpg: 00000001,64e04ace,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 47 [NYTr] Poisoned Russian Spy Went to Israel Weeks Before Death Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:27:38 -0600 (CST) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-DSPAM-Result: mail; result="Innocent"; class="Whitelisted"; probability=0.0000; confidence=1.00; signature=N/A X-Spam-Class: HAM Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit See also: "Putin and the Poisoned Spy: Don't Rush to Judgment" (Nov 27, 2006) http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20061120/052288.html excerpted from Abunimah News - Nov 27, 2006 AFP - Nov 27, 2006 Dead Russian ex-spy passed on dossier on Kremlin takeover of Yukos: report Agence France Presse LONDON, Nov 27 2006--Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who last week died in a mysterious apparent poisoning, travelled to Israel weeks before his death to pass along a dossier investigating how the Kremlin took over Russian energy giant Yukos, The Times reported on Monday. The dossier, which contains evidence of the Russian government's dealings with those running Yukos, will be presented to London's Metropolitan Police on Monday, the newspaper said. Litvinenko, who died late on Thursday in a case linked to alpha radiation from polonium 210 in his urine, was a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.According to the newspaper, he passed the dossier along to Leonid Nevzlin, the former second-in-command at Yukos. Nevzlin fled to Tel Aviv because he feared for his life after Russia took over the company and sold it off."Alexander had information on crimes committed with the Russian government's direct participation," Nevzlin told The Times."He only recently gave me and my attorneys documents that shed light on the most significant aspect of the Yukos affair. "Quoting unnamed investigators, The Times said that Litvinenko had uncovered "startling" evidence of what happened to those who opposed the forced break-up of Yukos.Several people linked to the company are reported to have disappeared, or died in mysterious circumstances, while others, such as its head Mikhail Khodorkovsky, have been jailed. psr/bm * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 48 [NYTr] The Growing Menace of Depleted Uranium Weapons Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:33:12 -0600 (CST) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-DSPAM-Result: mail; result="Innocent"; class="Whitelisted"; probability=0.0000; confidence=1.00; signature=N/A X-Spam-Class: HAM Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit The Veteran - Fall, 2006 issue Vietnam Veterans Against the War http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=662 Depleted Uranium Situation Worsens By Doug Rokke The delivery of at least one hundred GBU-28 "bunker buster" bombs containing depleted-uranium warheads by the United States to Israel for use against targets in Lebanon will result in additional radioactive and chemical toxic contamination, with consequent adverse health and environmental effects throughout the Middle East. Israeli tank gunners are also using depleted-uranium tank rounds, as photographs verify. Today, US, British, and now Israeli military personnel are using illegal uranium munitions--America and the United Kingdom's own "dirty bombs"--while US Army, US Department of Energy, US Department of Defense (DOD), and UK Ministry of Defence officials deny that there are any adverse health or environmental effects as a consequence of the manufacture, testing, or use of uranium munitions, so that they may avoid liability for the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive toxic material--depleted uranium (DU). The use of uranium weapons is absolutely unacceptable and a crime against humanity. Consequently, the citizens of the world and all governments must force the cessation of uranium weapons use. I must demand that Israel now provide medical care to all DU casualties in Lebanon and clean up all DU contamination. American and British officials have arrogantly refused to comply with their own regulations, orders, and directives that require DOD officials to provide prompt and effective medical care to all exposed individuals ("Medical Management of Unusual Depleted Uranium Casualties," DOD, Pentagon, 10/14/93; "Medical Management of Army Personnel Exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU)," US Army Medical Command, 4/29/04; Section 2-5 of US Army Regulation 700-48). They also refuse to clean up dispersed radioactive contamination, as required by Army Regulation 700-48, "Management of Equipment Contaminated With Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities" (Department of the Army, September 2002) and US Army Technical Bulletin 9-1300-278, "Guidelines for Safe Response to Handling, Storage, and Transportation Accidents Involving Army Tank Munitions or Armor which Contain Depleted Uranium" (Department of the Army, July 1996). Specifically, Section 2-4 of United States Army Regulation 700-48 (dated September 16, 2002) requires that: (1) Military personnel identify, segregate, isolate, secure, and label all RCE (radiologically contaminated equipment), (2) Procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity will be implemented as soon as possible, (3) Radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration, destruction in place, or abandonment, and (4) All equipment, to include captured or combat RCE, will be surveyed, packaged, retrograded, decontaminated and released. The previous and current use of uranium weapons, the release of radioactive components in destroyed US and foreign military equipment, and releases of industrial, medical, and research-facility radioactive materials have resulted in unacceptable exposures. Therefore, decontamination must be completed as required by US Army Regulation 700-48 and should include releases of all radioactive materials resulting from military operations. The extent of the adverse health and environmental effects of uranium weapons contamination is not limited to combat zones but includes facilities and sites where uranium weapons were manufactured or tested, including Vieques; Puerto Rico; Colonie, New York; Concord, Mass.; Jefferson Proving Grounds, Indiana; and Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Therefore, medical care must be provided by the United States Department of Defense to all individuals affected by the manufacturing, testing, or use of uranium munitions. Thorough environmental remediation also must be completed without further delay. I am amazed that fifteen years after was I asked to clean up the initial DU mess from Gulf War I, and over ten years since I finished the depleted-uranium project, US Department of Defense officials and others still attempt to justify the use of uranium munitions while ignoring mandatory requirements. I am dismayed that DOD and Department of Energy officials and representatives continue making personal attacks aimed to silence or discredit those of us who are demanding that medical care be provided to all DU casualties and that environmental remediation is completed in compliance with US Army Regulation 700-48. But beyond the ignored mandatory actions, the willful dispersal of tons of solid radioactive and chemically toxic waste in the form of uranium munitions is illegal and does not even pass the test of common sense. According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), DU is a "dirty bomb." The department issued "dirty bomb" response guidelines on January 3, 2006 for incidents within the United States, ignoring DOD use of uranium weapons and existing DOD regulations. These guidelines specifically state that "a radiological incident is defined as an event or series of events, deliberate or accidental, leading to the release, or potential release, into the environment of radioactive material in sufficient quantity to warrant consideration of protective actions. Use of an RDD or IND is an act of terror that produces a radiological incident." Thus, the use of uranium munitions is an "act or terror," as defined by DHS. Finally, continued compliance with the infamous March 1991 Los Alamos memorandum that was issued to ensure continued use of uranium munitions cannot be justified. In conclusion, the president of the United States, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, and the prime minister of Israel must acknowledge and accept responsibility for the willful use of illegal uranium munitions--their own "dirty bombs"--resulting in adverse health and environmental effects. President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Prime Minister Olmert should order medical care for all casualties and thorough environmental remediation, and stop the illegal use of depleted-uranium munitions. [Doug Rokke is a Vietnam veteran and the former director of the US Army Depleted Uranium Project. He has a PhD in health physics and was originally trained as a forensic scientist. When the Gulf War started in 1991, he was assigned to prepare soldiers to respond to nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, and was sent to the Gulf. What he experienced has made him a passionate voice for peace, traveling the country to speak out.] * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 49 NRC: NRC, Pa. Company to Discuss Apparent Violations Stemming from Temporary Loss of Nuclear Gauge News Release - Region I - 2006-06 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-06-060 November 21, 2006 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of a Bethlehem, Pa., engineering firm on Tuesday, Nov. 28, to discuss three apparent violations of agency requirements involving the control and security of NRC-licensed radioactive materials. The apparent violations stem from the temporary loss of a nuclear gauge in August and were identified during an NRC special inspection conducted in September at the offices of Pennoni Associates, Inc., and at two temporary job sites. The predecisional enforcement conference is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. at the NRC Region I Office, at 475 Allendale Road in King of Prussia, Pa. It will be open to the public for observation, though portions may be closed, if necessary, to discuss specific security aspects of the apparent violations. On Aug. 21, Pennoni notified the NRC that a portable nuclear gauge belonging to the firm was missing. The gauge, which contains small amounts of radioactive material and is used for such purposes as measuring soil density at construction sites, had been stored in a vehicle owned by a company employee authorized to use it. The employee had loaned the vehicle to a relative at 11 p.m. on Aug. 19 to perform a short errand. The gauge was stored in the back seat of the vehicle when it was borrowed. It was inside a locked transportation container, which was secured to the vehicle by a locked cable. The vehicle was not returned to the company employee, as promised. On Aug. 23, another relative of the company employee located the vehicle and returned it. However, the gauge and its transportation container were missing. The relative informed the Pennoni staffer that the gauge had been removed from the vehicle and left on the front porch of a residence in Bethlehem. The company retrieved the gauge from the porch on the morning of Aug. 24 and returned it to a company storage location in Bethlehem. It was determined that a lock on the transportation container had been broken and one of its handles damaged. However, there was no damage to the gauge and the radioactive material inside was still safely shielded. An NRC special inspection was conducted on Sept. 7 and 8 to review the circumstances surrounding the event. The inspection took place at the companys offices in Bethlehem and at temporary job sites in Rehrersburg and Chambersburg, Pa. The apparent violations by Pennoni are as follows: 1) a failure to use a minimum of two independent physical controls to prevent unauthorized removal of a nuclear gauge when it was not under direct control and constant surveillance of company personnel; 2) a failure to maintain constant surveillance of the device in an unrestricted area; and 3) a failure to make an immediate telephone report to the NRC after the gauge was discovered to be missing. The purpose of the Nov. 28th meeting is to obtain information to enable the NRC to determine what, if any, enforcement action is warranted. There will be an effort to come to a common understanding of the facts and a discussion of root causes of the event and corrective actions undertaken by the company. No decision will be made by the NRC staff at the session. Rather, NRC management will render a decision sometime in the near future. ----------------------------------------------------------------- NRC news releases are available through a free list serve subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC homepage at www.nrc.gov also offers a SUBSCRIBE link. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web site. Last revised Wednesday, November 22, 2006 ***************************************************************** 50 Deseret News: Officials don't worry over minor radiation [deseretnews.com] Monday, November 27, 2006 OGDEN (AP) Any number of trucks, trains and airplanes crossing through Utah could be carrying low-level radioactive material a fact state officials say the public shouldn't worry about. Cargo loads marked with a placard reading "Radioactive 7" carry material with only negligible amounts of radioactivity and are considered safe. "This is just another commodity shipment. I kind of equate it to animal manure. It's not something we want to spread around the streets, but if we get a spill here or there, it won't cause anything," said Bill Craig, health specialist and transportation expert with Utah's Division of Radiation Control. Typical shipments include materials like contaminated protective clothing, tools, filters and medical tubes. The state doesn't require companies to report such shipments on state roads. But some experts are concerned that vehicles hauling radioactive materials cross the state without notice and they question what might happen if a spill occurs. Low-level materials can be more dangerous than the public is led to believe, said Josh Dorner, a Washington, D.C.-based spokesman for the Sierra Club. Dorner believes checks on low-level shipments should be made to prevent more potent materials from being quietly allowed to be transported. "The high-level waste issue is completely unresolved, and it would be unfortunate to set a precedent of the public being uninformed," Dorner said. "It's easier for them to not tell the public later if they feel like they can get away with it now." Fewer than six trucks transporting spent nuclear fuel, or high-level waste shipments, travel through Utah each year, Craig said. Those shipments must travel on specified roads, typically interstate highways, and use the most direct routes. Utah has had few cargo spills involving low-level radioactive materials, Craig said. And the companies involved have been quick in their response, he said. In a spill near Parowan earlier this year, for example, the shipping company, a California power plant and waste recycler EngerySolutions all sent clean up and repair teams to the spill site. 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 51 Slate Magazine: Is radiation sickness contagious? - By Daniel Engber - explainer Can I catch a case of polonium-210? posted Nov. 27, 2006 Litvinenko couldn't have irradiated his friends and family directly, but it's possible that he exposed them to the radioactive polonium. Once he'd been poisoned, the toxic element would have entered all of his bodily fluids. (Doctors confirmed the presence of the material by testing his urinefor alpha emissions.) That means that anyone who came into contact with his urine, feces, or sweat might be at risk. In a certain sense, his radiation sickness could have been a sexually transmitted disease as well, since radioactive elements do show up in semen. (Researchers have found traces of depleted uranium in the semen of Gulf War veterans years after their initial exposure.) In order for someone to catch the radiation sickness, they'd have to be contaminated by Litvinenko's bodily fluids. That means they'd have to ingest, inhale, or otherwise take up enough excreted polonium to become sick. (Everyone has a tiny and harmless amount of naturally occurring polonium-210 in their bodies.) Bonus Explainer: If alpha particles only travel a few dozen microns, why are they so dangerous? Though they have a very short range, they cause a lot of damage. A single alpha particle, which is made up of two neutrons and two protons, will have a nastier effect as it traverses bodily tissues than, say, a beta particle, which consists of a single electron. Doctors measure these effects in terms of "rems" or "sieverts," which are related to the type of radiation and the amount of energy that gets absorbed by a given mass of tissue. A dose of alpha particle radiation will deliver more remsthan the same radiation dose in another form. Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer. Explainer thanks Keith Eckerman of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Daniel Engber explained what happens if you drink a liquid explosiveand whether cat litter is really radioactive. Brendan I. Koerner went over the cosmic radiation that affects our astronauts. Matt Alsdorf looked at the evidence linking cell-phone radiation with brain cancer. Atul Gawande pointed out that irradiating our foodis safe, even if it is overkill.Daniel Engber is an associate editor at Slate. He can be reached at . Picture of a radiation symbol on Slate's home page by Digital Vision/Getty Images. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forumWhat did you think of this article? ***************************************************************** 52 Idaho Statesman: E. Idaho storage basins sealed to contain radioactive residue 11-27-2006 statesman staff IDAHO FALLS Workers at the Idaho National Laboratory have filled huge storage basins with about 6,500 cubic yards of grout to seal them and prevent radioactive residue from leaking out, and now plan to remove water filtration systems and piping that were used to keep the basins clean. The storage basins, built in the 1950s, were used to hold spent nuclear fuel from INL reactors and from other locations until 2000. In 2003, cleanup work began. Workers removed 1.2 million gallons of contaminated water and 110,200 pounds of radioactive sludge from the storage basins. The work is part of the $2.9 billion Idaho Cleanup Project to decontaminate facilities and reactors no longer in use at the research area. ***************************************************************** 53 BBC: More radiation found in spy case Last Updated: Tuesday, 28 November 2006 [Alexander Litvinenko] Mr Litvinenko was a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin Traces of polonium-210 radiation have been found at two more central London addresses, police probing ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko's death say. One address, in Down Street, reportedly houses the offices of his friend, exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky. The other location, in Grosvenor Street, is the headquarters of security and risk management company Erinys. Traces of the substance have already been found at a sushi restaurant, hotel and Mr Litvinenko's north London home. Three people who have either been to the venues or had contact with him are to undergo radiological tests. Mr Litvinenko's friend Alex Goldfarb said the address in Down Street were the offices of Mr Berezovsky. He said: "I have been to that office many times, Mr Litvinenko did and everyone who was friends with Mr Berezovsky because that's his principal place of business in London." Erinys said that in the light of recent events the company had "immediately contacted" the police to tell them of a visit made by Mr Litvinenko to its offices. The places where polonium-210 radiation has already been found are the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square and Mr Litvinenko's home in Muswell Hill. [Map of radiation search sites] Emergency statement The death of the 43-year-old former KGB colonel last Thursday has been linked to the discovery of polonium-210 in his body. Home Secretary John Reid told MPs that Russia had been asked to co-operate in the inquiry into Mr Litvinenko's death. In an emergency statement in the Commons on Monday, Mr Reid said the Russian ambassador had been called to the Foreign Office at the end of last week. "He was asked to convey to the Russian authorities our expectation that they should be ready to offer all necessary co-operation to the investigation as it proceeds," said Mr Reid. Mr Reid also chaired Monday's meeting of the special emergency "Cobra" committee, which brings together ministers, officials and experts, to assess the risk to the public. HPA ADVICE Anyone at Itsu or the Pine Bar on November should call NHS Direct on 0845 4647 They will be asked a series of questions and may then be asked to take a urine test Timeline of case in full Reid statement in full The Health Protection Agency said more than 450 people had called a government hotline for advice and 18 had been followed up. Three have been referred to a specialist clinic as a precautionary measure because they had symptoms which may indicate radiation poisoning. It is thought they contacted the NHS helpline and answered detailed questions about their condition before being referred for a face-to-face consultation and possible urine test. Results are expected later in the week. Kremlin denial An inquest into Mr Litvinenko's death will be opened and adjourned on Thursday at St Pancras Coroner's Court, said a Camden Council spokesman. Mr Litvinenko, 43, became a British citizen after coming to live in the UK. Friends have suggested Russian top-level involvement in his death because Mr Litvinenko was a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. [Itsu restaurant] Mr Litvinenko visited Itsu on 1 November And on Sunday Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said "murky murders" had cast a shadow over Mr Putin's achievements. But the Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed allegations of involvement in the death as "sheer nonsense". Asked about Mr Hain's comments, Tony Blair's official spokesman said the prime minister had made clear his concerns about some aspects of human rights in Russia but it would be premature to draw conclusions in this case. Mr Litvinenko had been investigating the murder of prominent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of the Putin government, before he fell ill. On the day he was taken ill, he had had meetings at the restaurant and the hotel's Pine Bar. ***************************************************************** 54 NRC: Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes: Call for FR Doc E6-19911 [Federal Register: November 27, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 227)] [Notices] [Page 68642] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr27no06-126] Nominations AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Call for nominations. SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is advertising for nominations for the position of radiation therapy medical physicist on the Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes (ACMUI). DATES: Nominations are due on or before January 26, 2007. ADDRESSES: Submit 4 copies of your resume or curriculum vitae to The Office of Human Resources, Attn: Ms. Joyce Riner, Mail Stop T2D32, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT: Mohammad S. Saba, Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Program, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555; telephone (301) 415-7608; e-mail mss@nrc.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The ACMUI advises NRC on policy and technical issues that arise in the regulation of the medical use of byproduct material. Responsibilities include providing comments on changes to NRC rules, regulations, and guidance documents; evaluating certain non-routine uses of byproduct material; providing technical assistance in licensing, inspection, and enforcement cases; and bringing key issues to the attention of NRC, for appropriate action. ACMUI members possess the medical or technical skills needed to address evolving issues. The current membership is comprised of the following professionals: (a) Nuclear medicine physician; (b) nuclear cardiologist; (c) medical physicist in nuclear medicine unsealed byproduct material; (d) therapy medical physicist; (e) radiation safety officer; (f) nuclear pharmacist; (g) two radiation oncologists; (h) patients' rights advocate; (i) Food and Drug Administration representative; (j) Agreement State representative; and (k) health care administrator. NRC is inviting nominations for the therapy medical physicist to the ACMUI. The term of the individual currently occupying this position will end on September 30, 2007. Committee members will serve a 4-year term. Committee members may be considered for reappointment to one additional term. Nominees must be U.S. citizens and be able to devote approximately 160 hours per year to Committee business. Members who are not Federal employees are compensated for their service. In addition, members are reimbursed travel (including per-diem in lieu of subsistence) and are reimbursed secretarial and correspondence expenses. Full-time Federal employees are reimbursed travel expenses only. Security Background Check: Nominees will undergo a thorough security background check to obtain the security clearance that is mandatory for all ACMUI members. This check will include a requirement to complete financial disclosure statements to avoid conflict-of- interest issues. The security background check will involve the completion and submission of paperwork to NRC and will take approximately four weeks to complete. Dated at Washington, DC, this 18th day of November 2006. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Andrew L. Bates, Advisory Committee Management Officer, Office of the Secretary of the Commission. [FR Doc. E6-19911 Filed 11-24-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 55 UPI: Suspected spy poison deadly in tiny amount United Press International - Security &Terrorism - 11/27/2006 2:09:00 AM -0500 LONDON, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The radioactive poison suspected of killing an outspoken critic of the Russian government is both extremely rare and ubiquitous in tobacco smoke. British authorities said last week that the presence of radioactive polonium-210 had been detected in the urine of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent who died in Britain Thursday. Litvinenko contends he was deliberately poisoned to silence his criticism of President Vladimir Putin. Polonium-210 is a rare metal discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie that is used as a compact radiation source when mixed with beryllium. It was used in the Manhattan Project and has applications in satellite batteries and in some more-common industrial uses. The U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory said on its Web site that polonium-210 was extremely dangerous even in minute amounts and requires careful handling. At the same time, the element is found in phosphate fertilizers that are used in tobacco farming and, as a result, is found commonly in cigarettes. Anti-smoking organizations warn that polonium is a contributor to lung cancer although the effects of the small amounts inhaled are still being debated. Litvinenko appeared to suffer the effects of a relatively significant ingestion of something toxic. He reportedly fell gravely ill quickly and lost his hair. Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Bargains Herbal Life Weight Loss Poker Strategie Latest Gambling News Wedding Favours Canada Mortgage Rates Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. United Press International, UPI, the UPI logo, and other trademarks and service marks, are registered or unregistered trademarks of United Press International, Inc. in the United States and in other countries. About UPI | Affiliates | Legal Disclaimer | Privacy Policy | Careers | Advertise Online | Contact Us --> ***************************************************************** 56 Guardian Unlimited: Britain to Investigate Ex-Spy Poisoning From the Associated Press [UP] Monday November 27, 2006 12:31 PM AP Photo LMD117 By PAISLEY DODDS Associated Press Writer LONDON (AP) - Britain will open a formal inquest this week into the poisoning death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, local government officials said Monday. Litvinenko, 43, a former KGB agent and fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died Thursday of heart failure after falling gravely ill from what doctors said was poisoning by the radioactive element polonium-210. He had been granted British asylum in 2000. Although an autopsy hasn't started yet because of concerns over radioactivity, the inquest could begin as early as Thursday, according to Matt Cornish, a spokesman for the Camden Council. The local government body oversees the North London Coroner's Court. Such coroner's inquests in Britain are meant to determine the cause of death but they can sometimes cast blame. Last month, a coroner investigating the death of British television journalist Terry Lloyd - shot by U.S. troops in Iraq in March 2003 - criticized U.S. authorities for failing to name Marines involved in the incident. Another inquest ruled that a second British cameraman was murdered by an Israeli soldier in Gaza. British officials have avoided blaming Moscow for the death of Litvinenko but continued emergency talks Monday over the spy's death - an issue that could overshadow tough negotiations over energy issues and Russia's cooperation on the international standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions. In the strongest comments leveled at Moscow since the ex-spy's death, Cabinet minister Peter Hain on Sunday accused Putin of presiding over ``huge attacks on individual liberty and on democracy'' and acknowledged that relations between London and Moscow were at a difficult stage. Hain, the government's Northern Ireland secretary, said Putin's tenure had been clouded by incidents ``including an extremely murky murder of the senior Russian journalist'' Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of Putin's government. Litvinenko had been investigating her murder. Opposition leaders, meanwhile, have demanded an explanation from the government on how the deadly polonium-210 came to be in Britain. The ex-spy told police he believed he was poisoned Nov. 1 while investigating the October slaying of Politkovskaya. The ex-spy was moved to intensive care last week after his hair fell out, his throat became swollen and his immune and nervous systems suffered severe damage. London's Metropolitan Police said they were investigating it as a ``suspicious death'' rather than murder. They have not ruled out the possibility that Litvinenko may have poisoned himself. Guardian Unlimited Guardian News and Media Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 57 Guardian Unlimited: Traces of Radiation Found at More Sites From the Associated Press [UP] Monday November 27, 2006 6:16 PM AP Photo NY126 By PAISLEY DODDS Associated Press Writer LONDON (AP) - Traces of radiation linked to the poisoning death of a former KGB agent turned up Monday at two more sites in London, and three people who showed symptoms of contamination were being tested for the deadly toxin. The government has ordered a formal inquest into the death. Britain's Home Secretary John Reid appealed for calm, saying the tests on the three people were only a precaution. High doses of polonium-210 - a rare radioactive element usually manufactured in specialized nuclear facilities - were found in the body of Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-spy turned Kremlin critic who died Thursday at a London hospital. ``The nature of this radiation is such that it does not travel over long distances, a few centimeters at most, and therefore there is no need for public alarm,'' Reid said in a special address to the House of Commons. Litvinenko, 43, died of heart failure Thursday after falling ill from what doctors said was polonium-210 poisoning. The substance is deadly if ingested or inhaled. Six sites showed traces of radiation linked to the poisoning, including a bar in London's Millennium Hotel, a branch of Itsu Sushi near Piccadilly Circus, Litvinenko's house in North London and a section of the hospital where he was treated when he fell ill on Nov. 1. Two other sites - an office block in London's west end and an address in the posh neighborhood of Mayfair - also showed traces of radiation, according to residents. All the locations except Litvinenko's home are in west London, separated by about a mile. The sushi restaurant and part of the hospital have been closed for decontamination. Of hundreds of people who called a hot line over concerns they may be at risk, three exhibited symptoms that health officials thought should be examined, said Katherine Lewis, a spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency. She refused to elaborate. Derek Hill, an expert in radiological science at the University College London, said the public health risk was low. Although an autopsy has not started yet because of concerns over radioactivity, an inquest into his death could begin as early as Thursday, according to Matt Cornish, a spokesman for Camden Council. The local government body oversees the North London Coroner's Court. The opening is a legal formality, and such inquests are almost always adjourned immediately, sometimes for months. Coroner's inquests in Britain are meant to determine the cause of death but they sometimes cast blame. British officials have avoided blaming Moscow for the Litvinenko's death but emergency talks continued Monday and the issue threatened to overshadow negotiations over energy and Russia's cooperation on Iran's nuclear ambitions. In the strongest comments leveled at Moscow since Litvinenko's death, Cabinet minister Peter Hain on Sunday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of presiding over ``huge attacks on individual liberty and on democracy'' and said that relations between London and Moscow were at a difficult stage. Hain said Putin's tenure had been clouded by incidents ``including an extremely murky murder of the senior Russian journalist'' Anna Politkovskaya. Litvinenko had been investigating her murder. The Kremlin has denied any involvement. Reid, responding to opposition demands for an explanation of how the deadly polonium-210 came to be in Britain, said the radioactive element is strictly regulated and is used by about 130 sites in Britain. He did not elaborate. ``There has been no recent report of the loss or theft of a polonium-210 source in England or Wales,'' Reid said. Litvinenko told police he believed he was poisoned Nov. 1 while investigating the October slaying of Politkovskaya, another critic of Putin's government. The ex-spy was moved to intensive care last week after his hair fell out, his throat became swollen and his immune and nervous systems suffered severe damage. London's Metropolitan Police said they were investigating it as a ``suspicious death'' rather than murder. They have not ruled out the possibility that Litvinenko may have poisoned himself. Guardian Unlimited Guardian News and Media Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 58 [NukeNet] APP Nov 25 Nuclear waste dump faces new roadblocks Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:08:14 -0800 X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61] X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61 X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) Nov 25, 1:05 AM EST Nuclear waste dump faces new roadblocks By ERICA WERNER Associated Press Writer AP Photo/LAWRENCE JACKSON U.S. VideoWhen Congress targeted Nevada as the nation's nuclear waste dumping ground, the state didn't have the political power to say no. Twenty years later, the most ardent foe of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump is about to become Senate majority leader. Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid's new job, which gives him control over what legislation reaches the Senate floor, could deal a crippling blow to the already stumbling project. Among Reid's first acts after this month's election was to convene a conference call with home-state reporters to declare Yucca Mountain "dead right now." "It sure is different now than when I came (to the Senate) in 1986," the senator observed. The dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is planned as the first national repository for radioactive waste. It's supposed to hold 77,000 tons of the material - from commercial power plants reactors and defense sites across the nation - for thousands of years. About 50,000 tons of the waste is now stored in temporary sites at 65 power plants in 31 states. Reid would leave all of it in place. Originally targeted to open in 1998, Yucca Mountain has been repeatedly set back by lawsuits, money shortfalls and scientific controversies. The Energy Department's best-case opening date is now 2017. The effort to create a national storage site has already cost about $9 billion, $6.5 billion of which has been spent on Yucca. Four years ago, the Energy Department estimated the project would cost $58 billion to build and operate for the first 100 years. New cost projections are being worked up, and they are expected to total more than $70 billion. The department proposed legislation earlier this year meant to fix problems with the dump, which is a mounting liability to taxpayers because the government was contractually obligated to take nuclear waste off utilities' hands starting in 1998. Energy Department officials say at least one legislative change - formally withdrawing land around the dump site - is needed before construction can begin. Reid, however, pledged after the Nov. 7 election that not only will no bill to help Yucca Mountain reach the Senate floor under his leadership, funding for the project also will dry up quickly. Annual spending on the dump that has ranged between $450 million and $550 million in recent years "will be cut back significantly, that will be for sure," he vowed. _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://mail.energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 59 [NukeNet] Scotland: Dounreay 'will pollute for decades' Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:08:10 -0800 X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61] X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61 X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/ display.var.1042207.0.dounreay_will_pollute_ for_decades.php c0d67.jpg Dounreay 'will pollute for decades' RADIOACTIVE particles from the Dounreay nuclear plant will pollute beaches for decades to come and the environment will never be completely cleaned up. These are the conclusions of the latest expert study of the hundreds of thousands of fragments of nuclear fuel known to have leaked into the sea from the Caithness plant since the 1950s. The revelations have sparked anger from environmentalists, who say nuclear power has left Scotland with a "terrible legacy". Dounreay's operator, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), admitted that the behaviour that led to the leaks was "just not acceptable". Political arguments over nuclear power are bound to intensify with the energy policy agreed by the Scottish Labour conference in Oban this weekend, when delegates decided not to reject a new nuclear programme. The new study is by the Dounreay Particles Advisory Group (DPAG). "Particles will continue to be washed on to local beaches for some decades," it says. "It is impractical to aim to return the environment to a pristine condition." Trying to retrieve all the particles could be counter-productive, the report warns. "Disturbance of the sea bed could cause mobilisation and fragmentation of large particles, increasing the likelihood of particles reaching the public." Nevertheless, the report urges that "serious consideration be given to the targeted removal of significant particles". The UKAEA is seeking tenders for robots that could retrieve the particles. The DPAG report estimates that there are about 1000 "significant" particles in the sea. The most radioactive particle found so far "could have had life-threatening consequences if ingested". The report calls for the foreshore adjacent to Dounreay to be closed to the public and for monitoring of nearby beaches Sandside, Scrabster, Crosskirk, Brims Ness, Thurso, Melvich, Murkle, Peedie and Dunnet to be stepped up. Fishing within two kilometres of Dounreay's waste pipe has been banned since 1997. The UKAEA faces prosecution for the pollution, as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has submitted a report to the procurator fiscal. The report reveals one source was a series of hitherto unknown fires between 1969 and 1979. Other sources include the infamous Dounreay shaft, site of a "violent explosion" in 1977. "Up to several hundred thousand particles" have been discharged since 1959. "This is the terrible legacy that Scotland's failed nuclear experiment has left us with," said Duncan McLaren, of Friends of the Earth Scotland. "It should remind us why we should not countenance new nuclear power stations." UKAEA spokesman Colin Punler said: "The particles are a legacy of practices from the 1950s which we regard today as just not acceptable. "It's never going to be possible to retrieve every particle," he added. "But we need to reduce the risk to the minimum by going after the largest particles." 7:44pm Saturday 25th November 2006 By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://mail.energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net Attachment Converted: c0d67.jpg: 00000001,264af330,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 60 Las Vegas SUN: Earthquake a real possibility Photos: Catherine Snelson | Seismograph Today: November 27, 2006 at 8:52:41 PST Earthquake a real possibility Report ranks Nevada third for seismic activity behind Alaska and California By Launce Rake Las Vegas Sun Nevada earthquakes, 1850s to 1998 Click here for a printable graphic. To Nevadans who have grown complacent about the potential for a devastating temblor rocking the region, a state earthquake-activity report presents an unsettling conclusion. Nevada ranks third among the states, behind Alaska and California, in terms of seismic activity - defined by the magnitude of earthquakes that occur on average once per year, according to a report issued last week by UNR's Nevada Seismological Laboratory. Nevada's ranking may be a surprise, given that the state has been shaken by only 19 significant earthquakes between 1868 and 1994. But a repeat of those earthquakes, which generated a total of $17 million in damage at the time, would cause $1.57 billion in damage today because of how the state has grown, based on estimates by the Nevada Earthquake Safety Council. Catherine Snelson, UNLV assistant professor of seismology, says a quake causing significant damage in Las Vegas "is very possible." Some of the eight faults running through the Las Vegas Valley are capable of triggering an earthquake up to magnitude 7 , Snelson says. A magnitude 7 quake can cause serious damage over a large area. By comparison, a magnitude 3.5 is about the smallest that can be felt by most people and a magnitude 6 can damage buildings. UNLV researchers have reported that the region could experience an earthquake that could kill hundreds of people and do more than $10 billion in damage. Snelson says the faults under Las Vegas typically would produce a magnitude 7 earthquake every 1,000 to 10,000 years. The ability to precisely predict earthquakes eludes scientists. There hasn't been a very large earthquake under Las Vegas in the 150 years of modern record-keeping, but a study by UNLV geology professor Wanda Taylor suggests that a big temblor occurred within the last 2,000 years. The potential for an earthquake isn't the only seismological threat to the area. A fault system that is believed by geologists to be more active than those in Nevada lies beneath Death Valley in California, 150 miles from Las Vegas but with the potential of causing serious structural damage here. Big temblors Click here for a pritable graphic. "That system is close enough to us that it could be rather devastating," Snelson says. John Anderson, director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory, says there are about 60 monitoring stations around the state to study earthquakes here and around the world. About half of those are funded by the Energy Department to monitor seismic activity in conjunction with its efforts to put a high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Anderson says more data are needed to better understand how earthquakes work throughout the state, but one consequence of thwarting the waste dump would be that many of the data-collection points would be lost. Nevada's earthquakes are triggered largely by the annual, half-inch northward creep of the Sierra Nevada Mountains while Nevada remains mostly in place. When push comes to shove, earthquakes happen. Southern Nevada's geology makes the region even more susceptible to earthquake damage, Snelson and others say, because development has occurred atop sediment that has washed down into the valley from the surrounding mountains. In parts of the valley, it is hundreds of feet deep. Ground waves from hundreds of miles away can reverberate through the bowl of the Las Vegas Valley in a process called "amplification." Also, the water table under much of the valley is just 50 feet below the surface. That combination of sediment-causing amplification and the underlying water can lead to "liquefaction," resulting in serious damage. "We live in the nice big valley, and we kind of look at it like a bowl of Jell-O," Snelson says. The parts of San Francisco that saw the greatest damage after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake were those areas that had the greatest amplification and liquefaction. The same geological pairing played out in a devastating 1985 earthquake in Mexico that killed thousands of residents 200 miles away in Mexico City. Aly Said, a UNLV structural engineer, says the kind of damage seen in the Mexico City earthquake is not likely in Las Vegas because of better-constructed buildings. Although intuitively the last place most people would want to be is the top of a high-rise building, those buildings in Las Vegas are among the most stable because they were designed to handle strong lateral pressure from wind and earth motion, Said says - even if falling glass and other materials jeopardize people below. Snelson says risk assessments show the most dangerous buildings would be the four- to nine-story buildings, because they don't absorb the ground waves triggered by earthquakes as effectively. Said says the same design elements that allow tall buildings to survive high winds also provide lateral strength to overcome earthquakes. Single-story structures are also generally safe because there is less material to collapse. A 1999 federal study put Nevada fifth in the country for potential economic loss from earthquakes, echoing the conclusions of a host of studies that put the state close to the top in terms of potential risk. "We're constantly getting new information that further defines our earthquake risk," says Ron Lynn, head of Clark County's building division and chairman of the Nevada Earthquake Safety Council. "No matter how you look at it, we do have a risk. And we have been addressing that risk." This year, Clark County and its cities adopted new building codes from the International Code Council that specify building materials, design standards and reinforcing elements within new buildings. The new rules go into effect in May, but rules designed to limit the damage are already in place, Lynn says. High rises, he adds, are "eminently survivable." Steel and cement in commercial building and wood frames in homes are relatively flexible, providing a measure of survivability to most Clark County buildings, he says. Most vulnerable are older, unreinforced masonry buildings - of which there are none in Clark County, Lynn says, and about five dozen statewide. Most such buildings, such as the state government buildings in Carson City, have been retrofitted for earthquakes. Lynn, Snelson and others active with the Nevada Earthquake Safety Council say people can at least take safety precautions in their own homes. The biggest killer during and after earthquakes is falling objects, including bookshelves and other tall furniture that can tip in a quake. Snelson says the admonition to "drop, cover and hold on" is still the best advice: Get close to the ground; get under a heavy structure such as a table, desk or doorway; and stay there until the quake is over. Earthquake preparedness should include filling an emergency kit with food and water for five days, can openers, portable radio, flashlight, batteries, prescription medications, a first aid kit and cash. The kits should be refreshed annually. Snelson says that as Hurricane Katrina dramatically illustrated, disasters happen. "All we can really do is be prepared," she says. "We can't ignore it." Launce Rake can be reached at 259-4127 or at lrake@lasvegassun.com. All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 61 RGJ.com: Yucca plan revisits region ZAMNA AVILA RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL --> Posted: 11/27/2006 With Reid leading Senate, nuke dump's chances get dimmer [Haze hangs over Amargosa Valley, which some called uninhabited. In the left foreground is part of Yucca Mountain, from the top of which this photo was taken. The dark mount to the right is a 70,000-year-old volcano. photo by marilyn newton] MARILYN NEWTON/LOCAL:STAFF Haze hangs over Amargosa Valley, which some called uninhabited. In the left foreground is part of Yucca Mountain, from the top of which this photo was taken. The dark mount to the right is a 70,000-year-old volcano. photo by marilyn newton Meeting A meeting is scheduled 4-7 p.m. at the Lawlor Events Center, 1500 N. Virginia St., Reno. Details: visit www.ocrwm.doe.gov, www.state.nv.us/nucwasteand www.yuccamountain.org/time.htm Nuclear waste on its way to Yucca Mountain could pass through Northern Nevada under a proposed railroad shipping route being studied by the Department of Energy that is the topic of a public meeting today in Reno. The DOE last month said it planned detailed studies of a north-south route in addition to a previously identified east-west rail route through Caliente along the Utah border. The north-south route, dubbed the Mina Corridor, might be cheaper and faster than the Caliente Corridor because it would use existing rail lines from Winnemucca to Hawthorne, require fewer miles of new track than Caliente and cross fewer mountain ranges in making its way to Yucca Mountain. Local residents can meet with project officials at Lawlor Events Center to discuss concerns about the proposed Mina Rail Corridor, a train route that would run along U.S. 95 toward Yucca Mountain about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. About 77,000 tons of nuclear waste materials would be hauled on trains from 89 nuclear reactor sites in more than 40 states if the route is selected. DOE officials said shipments could begin in 2017. "If this route were selected, it would channel all of the nation's nuclear waste through the Interstate 80 corridor and would impact more Nevada cities and towns than any other," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. The meeting will include experts available to answer questions about environmental impacts and transportation plans. People also will have the opportunity to voice their opinions in front of a DOE officer and a court reporter, who will record the comments. "You can tailor the conversation to what you want to know and to what your level of knowledge is," said spokesman Jason Bohne of Bechtel SAIC Co., a contractor for the DOE. "That's the beauty of this format. With the variety of experts there, we can take you to the right person." Similar meetings were conducted in Hawthorne, Fallon, Las Vegas, Amargosa Valley, Goldfield and Caliente. Community college professor Michon Makedon, who attended a recent meeting in Fallon, said the set-up doesn't relay clear details to the average person and doesn't foster follow-up discussions. "The format ... did not lead to an honest and critical approach to the subject that was being discussed," Makedon said. "The environment was not conducive to inquiry and response." But Allen Benson, DOE director of external affairs for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said the format is the choice of most who attend. "People said they've preferred it because they are intimidated by microphones or an audience," Benson said. "People come in and sit in with a DOE officer, if somebody else wants to listen to the comments they are welcome to do so." Sparks Mayor Geno Martini sent a letter requesting a meeting in his city in late October, but DOE representatives said the distance between Sparks and Reno is relatively close and they would not extend their deadlines. "I am disappointed that they are discounting Sparks like that," Martini said. "We've got a lot people in our community that will be affected by this, and we deserve to have a special meeting with Sparks residents." Benson said interest in the Mina Corridor was renewed after DOE received a letter in May from the Walker River Paiute Tribe agreeing to a study of the route. The route was previously considered about 15 years ago in the department's environmental studies for the Yucca Mountain repository but was eliminated because the tribe informed DOE in 1991 that it would not allow nuclear waste to be transported across its reservation. Tribal chairwoman Genia Williams said in a news release that safety was a motivating factor to agree to the study. "Let me make it clear that we have not said yes to the route through our reservation until we fully evaluate studies on a new rail route that would be constructed miles away from our main population center," Williams stated. "We have no control over the highway traffic through our reservation and believe DOE will bring high level nuclear waste through our tribal community even if we protest." Jon Summers, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the nuclear waste routes being studied and the repository in Yucca Mountain will never become reality, especially because Reid is the incoming majority leader. "Yucca Mountain is a dying beast, and everything that we are seeing are last-ditch efforts to breath life into it," Summers said. "The reality of it is that the dump at Yucca Mountain will never be built and Nevada will not become the nation's nuclear dumping ground." ***************************************************************** 62 Salt Lake Tribune: Low-level radiation shipments across Utah unmonitored but safe, says health specialist The Associated Press Article Last Updated:11/27/2006 12:52:37 AM MST OGDEN - Any number of trucks, trains and airplanes crossing through Utah could be carrying low-level radioactive material - a fact state officials say the public shouldn't worry about. Cargo loads marked with a placard reading ''Radioactive 7'' carry material with only negligible amounts of radioactivity and are considered safe. ''This is just another commodity shipment. I kind of equate it to animal manure. It's not something we want to spread around the streets, but if we get a spill here or there, it won't cause anything,'' said Bill Craig, health specialist and transportation expert with Utah's Division of Radiation Control. Typical shipments include materials like contaminated protective clothing, tools, filters and medical tubes. The state doesn't require companies to report such shipments on state roads. But some experts are concerned that vehicles are hauling radioactive materials across the state without notice and they question what might happen if a spill occurs. Low-level materials can be more dangerous than the public is led to believe, said Josh Dorner, a Washington, D.C.-based spokesman for the Sierra Club. Dorner believes checks on low-level shipments should be made to prevent more potent materials from being quietly allowed to be transported. ''The high-level waste issue is completely unresolved, and it would be unfortunate to set a precedent of the public being uninformed,'' Dorner said. ''It's easier for them to not tell the public later if they feel like they can get away with it now.'' Fewer than six trucks transporting spent nuclear fuel, or high-level waste shipments, travel through Utah each year, Craig said. Those shipments must travel on specified roads, typically interstate highways, and use the most direct routes. Utah has had few cargo spills involving low-level radioactive materials, Craig said. And the companies involved have been quick in their response, he said. In a spill near Parowan earlier this year, for example, the shipping company, a California power plant and waste recycler EngerySolutions all sent clean up and repair teams to the spill site. © Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 63 NPR: EPA Expected to Issue Million-Year-Long Regulation Morning Edition, November 24, 2006 In the coming weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to issue a regulation that will extend 1 million years into the future. The timescale of the regulation, which deals with the disposal of power plant nuclear waste, is unprecedented territory for the EPA. "This will be the only rule that applies for such a long duration into the future," says Elizabeth Cotsworth, the EPA director of radiation and indoor air. "Most EPA rules apply for the foreseeable future -- five or six generations. This rule is for basically 25,000 generations." In 2002, after Congress and President Bush approved plans to store power plant nuclear waste material inside Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the EPA was placed in charge of laying out the repository's building codes, designed to last 10,000 years. "We thought that [10,000 years] was generally the limit of scientific certainty in our ability to predict with confidence," says Cotsworth. But opponents of the Yucca Mountain plan filed a lawsuit which argued that the regulation did not extend far enough into the future. After the courts agreed, the EPA extended the regulation by 100 times, to 1 million years. The agency doesn't know if there will be anyone to protect 1 million years from now. No one does. One way to get a sense for what can change over a million years is to look back into the past. Scientists do know that life has changed dramatically over the past million years. For example, our ancestors had skulls that were a third smaller that ours. They had not harnessed fire or started to make clothing. Neanderthals were still in the future. Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, says not to underestimate what can happen in a million years. "A million years ago is an exceptionally long time," he says. "Even though I study [the time period] 1 million years ago and what [that] means, it takes me time to get my head around it." by Melody Joy Kramer [Bunnies sitting in front of a radioactive nuclear sign.] Brandon Alms A winning design from the Desert Space Foundation's contest to design a universal warning sign for the Yucca Mountain site (more designs below.) Desert Space Foundation In Walter M. Miller's post-nuke sci-fi classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, there are no books. Literate people are killed. And underground monks work to preserve what little pre-war knowledge they can salvage, without knowing what the knowledge actually means. The monks' illuminated manuscripts, we learn, are actually blueprints for materials used to make nuclear bombs. There's no way for the monks to know that their saved traces of civilization will, most likely, destroy civilization again. The idea that the dangers of nuclear material might be lost on future descendants is not just limited to apocalyptic science fiction stories. It also worries those who live in Nevada near Yucca Mountain, the site where Congress and President Bush tentatively approved plans to store power-plant nuclear waste for the next 1 million years. Josh Abbey, the director of the Desert Space Foundationin Nevada, says most people are not aware of the consequences of nuclear waste. "The decision to place the waste [in Yucca Mountain] will impact humans 1 million years in the future," he says. "To place that kind of responsibility forward, I can't think of anything more audacious." In 2002, Abbey created a design competition to find a permanent warning sign for the proposed nuclear waste site. The purpose of the competition, he says, is to find a universal warning sign which conveys that the deposit is highly dangerous. One caveat: the symbols have to work even if language or communication breaks down in the future. And the design has to last at least 10,000 years. "Imagine," Abbey says, "that in the future, whoever's here doesn't communicate the way we do." Language and symbols do change over time. A report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says that half of the worlds 6,800 languages are in danger of disappearing over the next century. Add the fact that humans are naturally curious creatures who like to explore unknown artifacts (Egyptian pyramids ring a bell?) and you have a potentially deadly situation unfolding eons away. Abbey worries that a universal warning sign could actually encourage exploration. Still, he says, the government needs to design an effective warning symbol that will last far beyond current generations. In the 2002 Universal Warning Sign competition, the submissions were broken down into two categories: practical, technical solutions and sociological or philosophical statements about the futility of the exercise. Below, just some of the designs submitted in the competition: Blue Yucca Ridge [Genetically mutated blue cacti] Ashok Sukumaran Ashok Sukumaran's winning design in the competition features "genetically engineered Yucca catcus which turns various shades of blue depending on the levels of radiation in the area." "The irony of the concept," says Josh Abbey, "is twofold. First, there are no Yucca cactuses at Yucca Mountain. Secondly, it's like one genetic mutation trying to control another mutation." Fate of Nevada Seal [a radioactive symbol superimposed over the seal for the state of Nevada] Joshua Abbey Joshua Abbey's design features the seal of the state of Nevada superimposed on a radiation symbol. Abbey's design contains symbolic references to Yucca Mountain. "The center of the design is a train, which is how the waste will be transported," he says. "The bridge looks like a tombstone, and the rays of sunshine are transformed into radiation waves." Student Design from SMSU [A man hacking a giant radioactive sign] Southwest Missouri State university Students from Southwest Missouri State University entered eight designs into the competition. This one, from student Brian Norris, shows a man bowing to a trefoil radioactive symbol. The trefoil radioactive symbol was doodled on a notepad at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley in 1946. The design symbolizes rays radiating away from an atom and first featured magenta symbols on a blue background. The blue background was eventually replaced by yellow, which does not fade in sunlight. The use of yellow was standardized in 1948. Universal Warning Sign [giant 3D rock radioactive warning sign] Yulia Hanansen Desert Space Foundation Yulia Hanansen created a model of a giant 3-D rock placed at the entrance at each of the six Yucca Mountain openings. The sphere at the center of the rock represents the element uranium. In her artist's statement, Hanansen says "The monument itself becomes a symbolic mountain where one will be able to enter it and learn about what lies within." Nuclear Waste Mausoleum [A Nuclear Waste Mausoleum on the site of the Yucca Mountain] Scott A. Ogburn &Linda Buzby Scott A. Ogburn and Linda Buzby designed a series of mausoleums over the Yucca Mountain site. The design features the universal signs for "No," "Nuclear Waste" and "Radioactive Material." From above, the signs form a giant "Radioactive Material" warning sign. Related NPR Stories + April 5, 2005Hearing Held on Falsified Yucca Mountain Data + Sep. 16, 2004Can the Yucca Mountain Waste Project Be Stopped? + March 5, 2004Locals See Gold in Proposed Yucca Waste Site + July 10, 2002The Science of Yucca Mountain 'E-mail this Story' sponsored by: Kean: We Get IT Done.--> [Visit our Sponsor] --> ***************************************************************** 64 [du-list] Divine Strake back in Nevada Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:10:27 -0800 X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61] X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61 X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/3190 The fight is on, again. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., a member of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, says the Defense Threat Reduction Agency told him the Divine Strake test explosion of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil will take place at the Nevada Test Site. After public outcry and legal machinations, the test, which was to have taken place last summer at the NTS, was rerouted first to a gravel quarry in Indiana, then to White Sands, N.M. and now it's back in southern Nevada. Take off the gloves, it's time to go bare knuckles against this project and flush it once and for all. This test is likely to kick up settled radioactivity from the desert floor and spew it into the atmosphere, only to be dumped at the will of the jet stream who knows where. This test is also a precursor to the development of a bunker-buster bomb, which, according to the sparse material available, is a next-generation mini-nuclear device. Development of a new nuclear bomb would, of course, result in more testing at the Nevada Test Site. Tens of thousands, at least, died or encountered debilitating illness over the course of the last half-century as a result of fallout from the previous nuclear tests. They call them Downwinders and a few of them in Nevada and Utah received money through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act pushed through Congress by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in 1990. The clouds of death covered the contiguous 48 states and stretched into parts of Canada, killing and poisoning untold others who were not compensated. With an ever-growing population in the southeastern corner of Nevada near Las Vegas and the southwest corner of Utah, which is one of the most rapidly growing areas in the country, there are now more bodies to contaminate, more souls to be sacrificed in the name of nuclear weapon advancement. Politically and morally, two words that are seldom used together, it would also be an arrogant move by the United States to resume nuclear testing while pulling in the reins on other sovereign nations. This is an issue the new Congress cannot ignore. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, is a holdover from the last regime. He's fought the good fight against further nuclear testing and armament. It's not that he's soft on defense, it's that as a native of southern Utah, he has witnessed the death count from nuclear testing, which includes the loss of his own father, former governor of the state. It's time to take action. Start by contacting your local representatives. Then call Irene Smith, the DTRA spokeswoman, at (703) 767-5870. Finally, contact the White House at (202) 456-1414 or (202) 456-1111. _______ About author Ed Kociela the City Editor of southern Utah's The Spectrum. He blogs at www.edkociela.com. ed@edkociela.com. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Members | Calendar To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. e2588.jpg Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Visit Your Group SPONSORED LINKS * California energy * Science lab equipment * Increase energy level * Life science research * Life sciences Yahoo! News Science News Get the latest scientific news. Search Ads Get new customers. List your web site in Yahoo! Search. Drive Traffic Sponsored Search can help increase your site traffic. . e259c.jpg __,_._,___ Attachment Converted: e2588.jpg: 00000001,72f069db,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: e259c.jpg: 00000001,72f069dc,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 65 [du-list] Higher cost raises question about Centrifuge Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:10:18 -0800 X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61] X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61 X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST Jim Phelps posted http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/16012410.htm Newspaper: Higher cost raises questions about centrifuge project Associated Press DAYTON, Ohio - The cost of building a proposed uranium-enrichment plant in southern Ohio is running higher than previously estimated, raising questions about the future of the project, the Dayton Daily News reported Tuesday. The American Centrifuge project, located at an old atomic weapons plant near Piketon, would be used to produce fuel for nuclear reactors by 2011. USEC Inc., the Bethesda, Md., company that wants to build the plant, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month that costs are running "significantly higher" than a prior estimate of $1.7 billion. "These cost increases could make the project uneconomic," USEC said in its filing. "We cannot assure investors that efforts that we take to mitigate cost increases will be successful or sufficient, and cost increases could jeopardize our ability to successfully finance and deploy the American Centrifuge project." USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said the wording was included in a "risk factors" section of the company's filing, something that is required by the SEC to warn investors of the worst possible scenario. "We fully expect to secure the financing and deploy the American Centrifuge project," Stuckle said. The project would consist of 12,000 towering centrifuge machines rising 43 feet in the air. The machines use centrifugal force to separate the uranium, concentrating isotopes into forms that can be used as fuel. The project would also generate tons of radioactive waste - enough over 30 years to fill 41,000 cylinders weighing about 14 tons apiece, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. USEC announced Oct. 10 that its centrifuges exceeded performance expectations at early tests in Oak Ridge, Tenn., but full performance and reliability data won't be available until mid-2007. USEC said it plans to start running uranium hexafluoride gas through its test machines in Piketon later this month. ON THE NET http://www.usec.com/ Vina Colley __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Members | Calendar To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. e01f2.jpg Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Visit Your Group SPONSORED LINKS * California energy * Science lab equipment * Increase energy level * Life science research * Life sciences Yahoo! News Sports News Get up to the minute sports news Ads on Yahoo! Learn more now. Reach customers searching for you. Sitebuilder Over 380 Templates Build and custo- mize your web site . e020a.jpg __,_._,___ Attachment Converted: e01f2.jpg: 00000001,43f2d231,00000000,00000000 Attachment Converted: e020a.jpg: 00000001,43f2d232,00000000,00000000 ***************************************************************** 66 Hanford News: DOE mulls burial grounds cleanup This story was published Sunday, November 26th, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer During Hanford's early production years, patrol officers sometimes would have to block traffic 100 feet or more from railroad crossings. On those days, highly radioactive waste from Hanford processing plants was being carried by rail through central Hanford to burial grounds. The train engineer might be separated from the cargo by many empty cars and vehicle drivers had to stop far away from crossings to avoid a potentially dangerous dose of radiation. Today the Department of Energy is starting to think about what to do about the burial grounds in central Hanford where that waste was dumped before being covered with bulldozed dirt. The historic radioactive waste sites include trenches that would stretch more than 43 miles if lined up end to end, said Frank Roddy, team lead for solid waste disposal in the Department of Energy's Richland Operations Office. The trenches hold more than 650,000 cubic yards of waste. The waste came from Hanford's processing plants, where chemicals were used to separate plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program from fuel rods that had been irradiated in Hanford reactors. Also included are wastes from recovering uranium for re-use and from the Plutonium Finishing Plant. "It is a very, very challenging project and I think we will be struggling with it for years to come," said John Price, manager for environmental restoration for the Washington State Department of Ecology, which regulates Hanford. Much of the waste in the trenches may be cardboard boxes filled with trash with generally lower-level contamination. That includes plastic used to tent contaminated areas to keep contamination from spreading. But some of it, including boxes of waste that were transported by rail car, is expected to be very hot. Historical descriptions said some of the waste measured more than 500 rems per hour, and that could have been at 100 feet away, Roddy said. That compares with the about 0.36 rem of radiation an average person might be exposed to in a year from natural and manmade sources. A rem is a measurement of radiation's effect on human tissue. In addition, historical photos show stainless steel tanks were lowered into the dirt and buried. Typically they were empty, but they could have a crust of radioactive waste, Roddy said. Today the historic solid waste sites in central Hanford are flat, featureless expanses marked with radioactive warning signs. Over the last year, they've been poked and prodded as the first step in deciding how they should be cleaned up. Ground-penetrating radar has been used to look beneath the surface. In addition, differences in magnetic fields and in electrical conductivity have been measured to determine where waste was buried. Vapor sampling 6 inches beneath the surface also has been done. That work has helped determine where trenches were, the concentrations of waste in them and where carbon tetrachloride, a toxic solvent used to process plutonium, may be present. In some cases, undocumented areas where waste was buried were found, and in other cases trenches shown in drawings were not found and may not exist, Roddy said. The investigation also included researching thousands of historic documents, log books, drawings, aerial photos, surveys, unusual occurrence reports and technical reports. More than 147,000 records on specific burials have been collected. In the next year DOE plans to develop a plan for sampling the waste to do more detailed characterization before preparing a cleanup plan. A formal decision on cleaning up the historic burial grounds is expected in 2012 with work completed in 2024. 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 67 Hanford News: DOE finishes evaluation of cleanup plans at Hanford This story was published Monday, November 27th, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer The Department of Energy has finished its five-year review to evaluate whether cleanup plans and work at the Hanford nuclear reservation adequately protect people and the environment. The final document includes changes to correct deficiencies identified during the public review of the draft document, according to DOE. The review looked at only those areas of Hanford that fall under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or CERCLA. Some portions of the site, such as underground tanks of radioactive waste, fall under different federal regulations. Changes to the final document included gathering more information to support ecological risk evaluations, development of technologies to clean up and protect contaminated ground water and expanding the use of existing technologies to clean up more areas, according to DOE. DOE also toned down some statements in the report to reflect that final cleanup actions had not been determined, and that current plans reflected only short-term protections. For instance, in some cases, contaminated ground water might not be considered to pose a risk because it is not being used as drinking water. But a decision on cleaning it up still will be needed. The Hanford Advisory Board criticized the draft of the review for relying too heavily on keeping people away from contamination, rather than cleaning up contamination. The two major cleanup plans identified by DOE in the review as not working well were not surprising. At N Reactor, DOE has known for years that a pump and treat system costing $1 million per year for strontium 90 was producing only a fraction of the protection provided by natural radioactive decay. DOE now is trying a chemical barrier of a natural calcium phosphate mineral injected underground along the river to bind the strontium in place while it decays naturally. In the 300 Area, where uranium was formed into fuel for Hanford reactors, DOE once believed a uranium plume that pollutes about 96 acres of ground water would naturally dissipate. Since that has not happened, DOE plans to test whether phosphate compounds also would work there to stabilize the uranium. The Environmental Protection Agency also has been concerned about ground water moving toward the Columbia River from near the K Reactors that is contaminated with chromium, a nonradioactive chemical used as a corrosion inhibitor in Hanford reactors that produced plutonium during the Cold War. For a portion of the chromium plume, a system is working well to pump up the water, treat it to remove the chromium and reinject the water into the ground. But the system is not capturing part of the plume that's shifted farther down river. With the final review just released, EPA is studying the report and will decide if it agrees with its findings. The five-year review is posted at www.hanford.gov under the public involvement section. 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 68 Knox News: Y-12 facility nearly half complete Cost estimate for uranium storehouse now at $500M By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com November 27, 2006 OAK RIDGE - Construction of a new storage facility for bomb-grade uranium is now 40 percent complete and progressing nicely after a two-month shutdown earlier this year, according to the general manager at the Y-12 National Security Complex. "We're still going to be working hard to recapture the schedule we lost when we shut down," George Dials, the president of BWXT Y-12, the contractor that manages the nuclear weapons plant for the federal government, said in a recent interview. The cost of the nuclear storehouse has risen steeply, but Dials said he's confident the Oak Ridge project can be completed within the latest budget estimate submitted to Washington, D.C., for approval. "It'll be around $500 million," he said, declining to be more specific. That's similar to other cost estimates cited within recent months, but far above the earlier price tags that ranged from $200 million to $350 million. BWXT said the cost growth is due mostly to design changes mandated for security reasons after construction had already begun. The construction problems, which involved insufficient rebar in certain parts of the building, was another factor - as was the rising cost of construction materials, the contractor said. The storage facility, known officially as the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, is a key part of the government's plans to modernize the Oak Ridge plant. It will allow workers to consolidate uranium stocks at a single high-security location, instead of being spread out at half a dozen buildings - each of which currently requires big bucks to protect the nuclear assets from terrorists and other potential threats. HEUMF should be loaded and operational in 2009, according to current plans. "We've got to do this," Dials said. "This is essential to what we say the future is going to be, not just for Y-12 but for the nuclear weapons complex." While acknowledging that half a billion dollars is a lot of money to spend on a new storage facility, Dials said the project ultimately will save the government - and taxpayers - a bunch of money. "The opportunity costs for getting everything consolidated in this one building is hundreds of millions of dollars a year in savings," he said. "So the payback period is quick - just a couple of years." Some of the problems, including the construction setback, predated Dials' arrival as general manager in February, but criticism of Y-12 activities has continued throughout the year. The Project On Government Oversight, a watchdog group in Washington, has repeatedly claimed that Y-12 is vulnerable to terrorist attacks. POGO called for the hiring of additional guards and recommended covering the new uranium storehouse with an earthen berm to add protection. More recently, Bob Alvarez, a former advisor to the Department of Energy during the Clinton administration and onetime investigator with the Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee, released a report that cited a slew of safety problems at Y-12 and specifically criticized the plant's caretaking of uranium. Dials dismissed the reports as inaccurate or misleading, but said they are damaging nonetheless. Criticism of Y-12's construction of the new $500 million uranium storehouse may make it harder when the Oak Ridge plant seeks funding for a proposed $1 billion manufacturing center - the next big project on the modernization agenda, he said. "It just makes it more difficult and makes people more uneasy," he said. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel ***************************************************************** 69 lamonitor.com: Rising to the challenge: Lab sets course for 2020 The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor A round of workshops and a handful of reports later, a prominent national science laboratory is in the midst of redefining its future. The question for scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory is not only what to do tomorrow but what to be doing in the decade after next. The answer will shape not only the physical structure and infrastructure of the laboratory but also annual investment priorities for more than $100 million in basic research and development. "We needed to pose the laboratory for the future," said Terry Wallace, the principal associate director in charge of science, technology and engineering and LANL's Grand Challenges project. Stockpile stewardship, the program for maintaining and certifying the national nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing, is going into decline, by many accounts. Although it remains to be seen what comes next or when, federal budgets for maintaining large quantities of hydrogen bombs and warheads have flattened. One way or the other, a large portion of the weapons stockpile is scheduled for dismantlement in the next several years; and even if existing weapons are replaced by the current concept of a Reliable Replacement Warhead, there would presumably be fewer of them and they would be designed to require less care and attention. "The lab needs to maintain those capabilities but at the same time apply its skills to other problems of national security," Wallace said. At a meeting last month, LANL Director Michael Anastasio, along with Wallace, called for the science staff to participate in mapping the lab's profile twenty years from now, including what kind of new machines and facilities that next stage of evolution would imply. A two-day round of workshops followed; over 750 scientists participated. Wallace said they were enthusiastic and engaged, responding to the proposition that Los Alamos is the master of its own fate. "The future is in our hands," said Wallace. "It's the only time we have ever done this at Los Alamos; and it is creating a groundswell." In arriving at a set of grand challenges, as the new managers promised in their winning proposal for the lab contract, the laboratory and its federal managers at the National Nuclear Security Administration came up with a set of seven areas of investigation, two of which were already part of the current mission - stockpile science and nuclear threat detection. The other five areas involve scientific pursuits in which LANL has a head start, as in the case of high-temperature superconductivity and plutonium science, as well as materials research. A subset includes challenges for which the laboratory has promising specialties that can be expanded in the service of pressing national concerns, like clean and efficient energy. "Some areas we excel in," Wallace said. One of the focal interests, the one that includes high-temperature superconductivity, illustrates a kind of ideal overlap and convergence with the other areas, according to John Sarrao, the physicist who serves as the thrust's leader. "If you can get the community to agree on the question, you can do a smarter job if you're picking the one that will best focus efforts," he said. A simple question - "How do the outermost shell of (5f) electrons in plutonium behave?" - turns out to have opened many channels of exploration, having to do not only with the actinide group of 14 radioactive elements related to plutonium, but also other kindred families of metals. Understanding the mysterious either/or, on/off, alpha/delta, bonding or non-bonding nature of plutonium's outer rings of electrons, turns out to have ramifications all the way through the whole list of challenges. "It's not only because of what we do," Sarrao said, "but because that's where scientific frontiers really are." Answers to contradictory behaviors discovered in actinide research tie physics to chemistry and plutonium to superconductivity and complex systems. The ability to manage the plutonium cycle would not only add impetus to the revival of nuclear energy, but would also have applications for material research and questions of the standard model concerning the tiniest building blocks of nature - and beyond, to the universe. "In addition to being the most complex element in the periodic table, plutonium also has great social impact," wrote former LANL Director Sig Hecker, introducing a presentation at a Plutonium Futures conference in July. "It has become to symbolize everything we associate with the nuclear age. It evokes the entire gamut of emotions from good to evil, from hope to despair, and from the salvation of humanity to its utter destruction." And not only that. The proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility, a huge construction investment which could cost nearly $1 billion, is now poised between minimal funding and major funding in the unfinished appropriations bill for the current fiscal year. But the threatened cuts are related to CMRR's uncertain role in the weapons complex of the future, based on how long and how extensively LANL will be in the business of making nuclear pits, the triggers for nuclear weapons. As an actinide science complex, Sarrao suggested, there could be a broader argument in its favor. Understanding the answers to the simple question of how the 5f electrons in plutonium behave, could say a great deal about what to put in that facility, what kind of people you need to have working there and what might be derived from their work. "If the community's focus grows apart, that's bad," he added. "Convergent ideas will do the most good." Wallace said he is reviewing the reports. The next step will be to set priorities based on what comes out of that, while forming teams across the campus to continue to develop the ideas, then develop a business model to keep them going. 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************